


To The End

by crookedassembly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2007, Dubious Consent, Evil Sam Winchester, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Consensual Touching, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, written post-season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 09:48:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16616642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedassembly/pseuds/crookedassembly
Summary: The world is ending, Sam has turned, and Dean stops running.(previously posted under sometimesophie on LJ)





	To The End

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of my old fanfic makes me wince these days but actually not this one. That is probably thanks to Kres who provided absolutely sterling beta services.
> 
> As a general note, and with sincere apologies to my current subscribers, I've finally decided to cross-post some of my ancient fanfic to AO3 for the sake of posterity.

When Dean finally gets tired of running, he stops.

It’s a Thursday and outside the sky is blue, the air chill, and he’s sitting on the flimsy lid of a toilet seat in some grungy bathroom in some grungy diner in Wisconsin, staring at spidery red graffiti on the door of the stall that says “I did ur mom.” Four and a half minutes later, when he leaves the diner, doughnuts and chips tucked up under his arm and the last of his change jangling in his back pocket, the sky is still blue, the air still chill, and everything else has changed. He gets into the car he hotwired two states away and drives and drives and drives.

He heads for dense forest and a place he knows.

~

The house has been deserted for a long time.

A thick track of salt behind the front door, along the crooked floorboards. White lines on each windowsill, pressed up close against the mucky panes. Dean keeps on pouring the stuff until it’s inch-deep over the threshold of the room he finally chooses to hole up in, then carries five armloads of supplies in from outside, carefully stepping over the white lines every time and piling the cans and dry food in one corner, his bedding in another.

The last book Bobby gave him is the final thing he takes from the car - stowed under the passenger seat next to where he keeps his remaining shotgun, covered in a musty scrap of material - and he sits cross-legged in the middle of the room, a piece of chalk in his fingers, and mutters every spell he thinks might help. His voice is rough with disuse and the Latin is awkward on his tongue, even after months of repetition. The words never helped Bobby in the end and Dean’s no fool, but he doesn’t mind admitting to himself that the familiarity of  _trying_ is something of a comfort, at least.

After that, there’s not much more he can do but sit on his heels and wait. He checks and polishes and re-checks and re-polishes the three guns and two knives that comprise his arsenal. Eats two cans of cold sausages and beans a day, and saves the boxes of sugar-coated cereal and bags of chips for special occasions, like midnight and the end of the first week and the one time he heard a car outside and his heart stutter-thumped as the engine growled on past without stopping. It’s  _surviving_ and it’s  _not getting other people killed_ but Dean’s never wanted a Laundromat, or daytime TV, or the casual buzz of talk at a bar more in his life.

It takes nine and a half days for Sam to find him. Nine and a half days and Dean tells himself he’s glad for the change of pace when the low thrum of a motor chokes off outside and the front door shatters inwards. He tells himself he’s ready for this and he’s good for this as he cocks the first gun and levels it at the closed door of the room, grip firm, hand steady.

It’s only when Sam pushes the door open and doesn’t even look down at the salt line as he steps over it, eyes trained on Dean and a small smile playing over his features, that Dean realises he’s been lying to himself for a long time.

~

Later, when Sam rolls him onto his stomach, drags off his leather jacket and starts tying Dean’s wrists to the insides of his elbows, he says, “What if I’d brought Andy with me, Dean? I could have made you gut yourself, blow your own brains out, shove your fingers into your eye sockets to get to your brain. Did you think about that, huh?”

He tugs the knots angrily tighter.

Dean’s head is thick with pain and he doesn’t reply. When he tries to get some sort of grip on his uselessly loose limbs, Sam cuffs him around the head and says, “Don’t,” short and abrupt, and stars burst painfully behind Dean’s eyelids as he goes limp again. Sam finishes the knots and then hauls him up by the scruff of his neck, fingers twisted into the fabric of his shirt.

“Dude,” he says, wrinkling his nose as he holds Dean against him, a strong arm hooked around his chest keeping him up, “you smell like a dog. What, no showers in this joint?”

Sam smells faintly of sulphur and cheap laundry detergent and  _Sammy_. Dean tries hard not to breathe it all in.

“Get your feet under you or I’m dragging you.”

Then Sam’s arm is gone and replaced by a hard hand on his shoulder, pushing him forward. Dean stumbles and almost goes to his knees on the warped wooden floor. He concentrates on his boots, feeling dizzy as he directs one foot in front of the other and tries not to lose his balance. Out the door, down the porch steps with Sam close behind him, his fingers biting into his shoulder. Dean has to pick his feet up to avoid tripping in the thick devil’s weed choking the path and it’s almost the end of him.

He’s swaying by the time Sam pulls him to a stop, and when he looks up his heart catches in his chest because that’s the  _Impala_ Sam’s opening the passenger side door to, and he hasn’t seen her sleek, familiar lines since he emptied the trunk and left her in a parking lot over six months ago, the burn of betrayal at the back of his throat. He had begun thinking of the car fondly as MIA - not the first casualty in a war their side was going to lose. Even if the FBI hadn’t been able to trace her, Sam certainly could.

Sam rolls his eyes. “You’re pathetic,” he says. “Get in.”

Dean does. He flexes his slowly numbing fingers behind him, smoothing over the seat upholstery with all his limited movement.  _Hey, girl_ , he thinks,  _still as beautiful as ever_ , and ignores the derisive snort from Sam as his brother leans across him and thumbs down the lock on the door.

Dean slouches down in an effort to get his weight off his arms, and shuts his eyes to the sound of the engine rumbling into life. Sam starts humming something in rhythm to the thick pounding in Dean’s head, and he can already feel a hot, angry lump forming where Sam rebounded his skull off the floor.

It feels almost like the aftermath of a bad hunt: nothing and everything to talk about, the rush of adrenaline leaving him weak and exhausted. If Dean tries hard enough, he thinks he might be able to forget everything that’s changed since the last time they were sitting side by side like this.

~

Four hours later, he snaps awake, fuzzy and disoriented. Near him, a car door slams shut. They’re stopped at a gas station and he watches through hooded eyes as Sam leans against the fender, refuelling, a bored expression on his face. There’s a man in a red pickup to Dean’s left. A teenaged girl and her mother coming out of the shop. Two bikers in leathers with their helmets off, talking over their Suzukis. Past the boundary, bright light spilling over the concrete, there’s the darkness of evening and enough brush to cover him.

Sam hangs up the gas handle with a clunk and leans in to get his wallet. Cold air blows into the car, the width of his shoulders not blocking out enough of the outside.

“Don’t even think about it,” he says, in the same tone of voice he’d have once used to warn Dean away from stuffing slime-soaked socks into Sam’s duffel instead of his own. “Or they’ll be dead and you’ll be hogtied in the back.”

Dean doesn’t doubt that he means it. “Go to hell,” he says, viciously, thinking about Bobby and Ellen and hot blood dripping through his closed fingers.

He doesn’t try anything, though. Just sits and watches Sam walk across the concrete, up into the shop, easy as you like. The minutes drag by. Dean’s knee jitters restlessly up and down as he stares across at the dark windows, waiting for the screaming to start. It doesn’t. When Sam finally comes out again, he’s carrying a bag in one hand, and he smiles politely and holds the door open for red pickup guy.

Dean wonders whether his brother’s got a gun on him. Doesn’t think it would make him any less deadly if he didn’t.

Sam dumps the bag at Dean’s feet without comment and starts up the engine. He pulls out onto the dark road and drums his fingers against the wheel. Dean tries not to think about the cramping in his shoulders and the ache in his belly. His last can of sausages and beans seems like a long time ago.

Twenty minutes of dark, wooded landscape later, and Sam flicks on the blinker, pulling the car off the main road and bumping down a rough path between the trees. They come to a gentle stop in a clearing, the humped shapes of picnic tables cast into sharp relief by the glare of the headlights.

Sam pushes the driver’s door open and gets out, stretching long and hard. Dean imagines he can hear his brother’s back popping and his own spine aches with jealousy. Then Sam’s moving around the back of the car, opening the trunk, rummaging for something.

Rope, as it turns out.

Dean stares at the rough coil in his brother’s hand when Sam opens his door. He scowls.

“You even try to fucking hogtie me and I am kicking your ass.”

Sam ignores him. “Legs out.”

“C’mon, Sam,” Dean says, frustrated and tired. “Where the hell am I gonna go, huh?”

“Legs,” Sam repeats, patiently, and it’s like banging his head against a brick wall. Dean sets his jaw mutinously but Sam just smiles, tight and weird, and says, “You want to try me on this one, Dean?”

Dean wants to hit something. Awkwardly, without hands for leverage, he shuffles around in his seat and puts his boots on the ground. He doesn’t watch Sam tying the knots with an expert’s ease, just stares off somewhere above his brother’s shoulder, out into the dark.

“Right,” Sam says. “Up.”

Dean can hardly move. In the end, it’s Sam’s hands in the material of his shirt that bring him wobbling to his feet, Sam’s hands that turn him and push him up against the side of the Impala. And when Sam’s fingers start tugging at the rope around his wrists, Dean doesn’t say anything, just holds as still as he can, his baby smooth and cool beneath his chest.

When his hands finally fall free, he grunts in pain as his shoulders loosen and tries to twist the ache out of his wrists. Sam’s fingers are suddenly hot and tight around the back of his neck, pressing him hard against the roof. Dean freezes.

“You are going to turn around now,” Sam says, slowly. “You are going to put your back against the car while I retie your hands and you are not going to come off it. If you do, I’m gonna find it easier just to knock you out. Clear?”

“Clear,” Dean mutters. He pivots slowly with tied ankles, trying not to overbalance, and Sam’s watching him, his weight on the balls of his feet, like he thinks Dean’s going to make a run for it. “Just -- Gimme a moment, yeah?” Dean says, and puts his shoulders back, wincing as they crack loudly. “Yeah,” he says, “okay,” and puts his hands out without a fight.

Afterwards, Sam manhandles him back into the car, and uses another piece of rope to loosely tie his wrists and ankles together. Dean can’t bring his hands up much higher than his waist, but it’s a hell of a lot comfier and he’s thankful for small mercies. He’s even more thankful when Sam brings out the contents of the carrier bag: cheese and ham bagels, two bottles of water, a bag of peanut M&Ms.

“I figured you’d be hungry,” Sam says, with a shrug, and Dean has no clue what’s going on because  _peanut M &Ms _for fuck’s sake. He stays silent.

They sit side by side, the only sounds the rustle of paper and chewing. Dean has to bend right over his lap to eat, and it’s messy and uncomfortable and he’s probably going to get indigestion, but hey,  _food_  and he’s fucking starving. He can’t tip the water bottle back enough, though, and Sam puts up with him struggling with it for a couple of seconds before snatching it from him. He holds it to Dean’s lips, and Dean glares at him before grudgingly opening his mouth, swallowing down. Sam does nothing but watch him. It makes Dean’s skin feel a couple sizes too small.

Sam drives through the night without stopping while Dean dozes fitfully by his side. When he’s coherent enough to think in straight lines, he wonders whether his brother even needs to sleep anymore.

They don’t talk.

~

The motel they finally stop at looks half-eaten by forest; small cabins set back among the trees, moss in the guttering and fallen leaves blown up in drifts against the sides. Private, quiet, no one around. Sam goes into the office to get a key, then drives them around the far side to number 12.

“Legs,” he says, as he opens Dean’s door, and Dean knows the drill by now. Four piss-stops later, he also knows Sam doesn’t have a gun on him, doesn’t need a gun on him, just careful eyes, clear directions and scarily strong hands, standing too close and yet just out of reach.

When Dean can walk, Sam pushes a duffel into his tied hands and gestures to the cabin. Dean looks around as he crunches through dead leaves to the steps, scoping the place out, and Sam knows what he’s doing, of course he does, the bastard’s giving him the time to do it, allowing Dean to see for himself that trying anything out here would be a really fucking stupid idea because there’s forest and more forest and nothing much else. Nowhere to run  _to_.

Awkwardly, he dumps the duffel on one of the beds. There are trees inside, as well: leafy branches stretching across the wallpaper, acorn knobs topping the bedsteads, pine-green covers and bare, creaky floorboards beneath his feet. The whole place smells musty and unused. Sam closes the door behind him, and there was a time when Dean would have cracked a joke - something lame about how he had his own little jungle now that Sasquatch had arrived - but his mouth is dry and he’s not sure his voice would work anyway.

“Sit,” Sam says, and gestures. “Near the head.” He’s already got the rope in his hand, and the bed protests as Dean does as he’s told, the mattress whining beneath him as he shifts so Sam can loop his tied hands to the frame without breaking his arms.

“Try and get some sleep,” Sam says, double checking on the knots and straightening. He shrugs out of his sweatshirt, kicks off his shoes, goes into the bathroom. The pipes clank in the walls as the shower starts up. Dean stares at the closed door for a long moment, then mentally shakes himself and struggles to get out of his boots.

He misses the Glock he had long ago swapped his knife for, upgrading and trading in as soon as he had accepted that Sam would never be stopped by a simple blade. It feels strange without his hand tucked up under the pillow, fingers wrapped around the solid grip of the gun, but when he finally puts his head down, Dean sleeps better than he has for a long time.

When he wakes up, it’s dark outside. There’s a sandwich on the bedside table and Sam is sitting at the desk, hunched over a book, fingers and lips tracing the words on the page. The other bed is rumpled, and whether it’s been slept in or not, Dean’s guess is as good as anyone’s. His eyes are gritty, his fingers cold from being twisted somewhere up above him, but he feels vaguely human again.

“I need to take a leak,” he says, after a moment.

Sam ignores him long enough to finish the page, then slowly unfolds himself. He unties Dean from the bed, gives him space enough to get up but follows him right into the bathroom, standing at his shoulder. It’s enough to give a guy performance anxiety, Dean thinks bitterly, as he unzips.

“You gonna hold my hand when I take a shit, too?” he snaps.

Sam doesn’t reply. Just steps back once Dean’s shaken off and tucked himself back in. He doesn’t comment when Dean fumbles awkwardly with tied hands at the tap, letting cold water run over his knuckles before cupping his fingers and wetting his face, taking his time, trying to get a rise. He gets nothing. Sam just shepherds him out, tells him to eat his sandwich and goes back to his book.

Sam doesn’t tie him down again. Instead, he sits at an angle at the desk, and whenever Dean moves, his eyes flicker up, watching, assessing, before lowering back down to the page he’s on. Dean finds it kind of funny to begin with: scratches his head, shifts against the pillows every few minutes, crosses and uncrosses his feet, just to piss Sam off. It gets old fast, though, and after the first few times he shifts without meaning to, just getting comfy, and looks up to find Sam watching him, he begins to get antsy.

He turns on the TV to fill the silence, expecting Sam to tell him to switch it off. He doesn’t, though, and Dean watches the news. There’s a segment about a few crazy murders sandwiched between the President making a speech about the Middle East and Britney Spears’ second comeback tour. The weather guy talks about freak storms and early snow, looking bored. The local news offhandedly mentions dead cattle - one farmer swearing he saw someone with black eyes.

Dean doesn’t look at his brother. He flicks to cartoons.

~

By noon the next day, they’ve left the trees behind. The landscape is washed out and flat, brown and dead from a too hot summer and a too cold fall. The road stretches out in front of them and doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere at all.

“Where we headed?” Dean asks, casually. “Tea party with all the other freaks?”

“Yeah,” Sam says, not taking his eyes off the road. “There’s gonna be cake and everything.”

“You just call them up and they come to heel, right? I can just guess how riveting the conversation’s gonna be.”

Sam doesn’t reply.

Dean doesn’t say anything else for ten miles. When he asks whether they can have some music on, Sam shrugs and turns on the radio. It flickers and jumps for a moment, then settles.

They cross the state border. There are flowers by the side of the road, piled deep where the ground is freshly churned up, bouquets leaning against a gaping, splintered fence. Dean can see the two ruts where the wheels came off the road. He thinks about the crunch of metal as the hood crumpled inwards, the flash of fear, the sudden hot pain.

He thinks about death.

~

“Do you enjoy it?” Dean asks, as Sam ties him to a new bed frame. This one’s old and metal and slightly rusted, and Dean’s never paid so much attention to the damned things before. “Killing people, I mean.”

Sam ignores him. His face is close enough that Dean can feel his breath on his skin, and some time soon Dean is going to smash his forehead up into the bridge of Sam’s nose, knock his brother out, put a knife to his throat.

It’s been a long fucking day; strangely humid, the air close around them and exhausting. Dean feels pretty rank in his three-day old t-shirt. He’s itching to get out of his skin, to  _do_  something, anything, to fight the claustrophobia bearing down on him. They’d been on the road for twenty hours straight, and he still can’t work out where Sam’s taking him, winding slowly across the country like they’ve got all the time in the world.

“Must have been a bit of a rush, yeah?” he says. “’Cause you have to be feeling something to batter a woman to death like that. And Ellen was a fucking mess, man. But then you know that, course you do, you were there.” He smiles, bright and hard, and it feels like his face has been slashed in two.

Sam shrugs. “If it makes you feel any better, she was probably dead after the first blow.”

He moves smoothly out of the way when Dean jerks to his feet, trying to take the bed with him, the ropes dragging at his wrists and almost dislocating his shoulders. He’s so angry, almost blind with it, hissing and wanting to put his hands around Sam’s throat, and it’s ridiculous, hopeless, because he can’t even stand up properly, hunched over the bed, tugging at the rope, the metal frame scraping over the wall.

“You bastard,” he says, “you fucking -”

Sam looks him calmly in the eye and says, “Maybe you should stop trying to bait me, Dean.”

Dean looks at him and doesn’t say anything. After a moment, he turns away and sits stiffly back down. His wrists hurt. He can remember Ellen’s hair against his fingers, thick and sticky with drying blood. One side of her face had crumpled inwards from impact and her body didn’t lie right when he propped her up against his knees, like it was broken in more ways than one. He could feel the jagged grind of what had once been her spine as he had felt for a pulse he knew wouldn’t be there.

You don’t know, he wants to say. You weren’t there when she was cold and rigid. You didn’t have to burn her.

His wrists hurt.

Sam goes away and Dean shifts, putting his back flat to the mattress, his head on the pillow. The ceiling blurs above his head, his eyes hot and stinging, and he turns his face away when Sam comes back, more rope in his hands.

“Why don’t you just kill me?” he asks, his voice rough. Sam straightens Dean’s legs against the covers, tying knots around his ankles and Dean doesn’t fight it. He feels more tired than he has in a long time, dry and worn out. “It’s not like you have a problem with it.”

Sam doesn’t answer. When he’s done stretching Dean out enough to loop the rope around the legs of the bed, he sits and tucks a thumb up under the hem of Dean’s jeans, stroking a line of warmth against the skin of his ankle, just above the rope holding Dean down.

“Don’t worry,” he says, softly. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Dean turns his face into his shoulder because it’s the only thing he  _can_  do, the only way he can get out from under Sam’s eyes. It’s hard to breathe around the jagged lump in his throat and Sam shushes him gently like a baby, his thumb still dragging soothingly against his skin.

They stay like that for a long time. Dean falls asleep and doesn’t feel Sam get up.

~

They’re a couple of hundred miles into South Dakota when Dean makes his move. Rears up when Sam’s bent over him, about to tie him to the bed, and his forehead connects so hard with Sam’s head that it makes him dizzy, but it’s enough to take Sam to his knees. Then Dean’s on him, barrelling him backwards and bouncing his head off the floor. When his brother goes limp, he starts picking at the knots around his wrists with his teeth.

Finally free, he swipes the keys and goes out to the Impala. Opens the trunk and stops short because where there used to be guns and axes and rock salt, there’s just  _books_. Small and large, old and new, and how fucking typical, Dean thinks. Sam goes dark side, becomes the goddamn champion of hell, and he uses his power to rip off  _libraries_.

He starts rummaging past them, ignoring bent-back covers and ripped pages, all the things Sam used to scowl at him for. Underneath, shoved to the side as if unimportant, he finds dry herbs and old teeth, willow sticks, a jar of blood. He’s careful not to touch any of it. Behind that, there’s a knife, its blade shining in the daylight when Dean takes it out, studies it. It looks faintly sacrificial. He sets his jaw and heads back indoors.

The blade is heavier than he’s used to, the balance off in his hand. He stares down at his brother for a long time and none of it feels real. He gets on his knees, puts a rough hand in Sam’s hair to tilt his head back, places the knife against his brother’s throat.

And hesitates.

Out cold, Sam is his brotheragain. Mess of hair, face smooth and young, eyes shut and for once not looking at Dean as if he can see into his head. Dean grits his teeth.

“Come on,” he orders himself. “Come  _on_.” He presses a little harder with the knife, just nicks the skin, and beads of blood break the surface. Dean stares numbly at the slice of colour.

Swearing violently, he pushes Sam’s limp body away from him. His hands are shaking and he forces himself to think of the funeral pyres he’s watched burn across the country, the acrid taste of smoke in his throat, fucking helpless to stop any of it. He knows he might never get a better chance at this, and if saving his own skin isn’t reason enough, then saving the whole world from being consumed by hell should damn well be.

He’s still got the knife, Sam’s still out cold, but Dean knows it’s already too late. Sam is still his brother, Sam is still Sammy, and Dean would still prefer to blow his own brains out.

Cold realisation is like a punch to the gut.

He fumbles blindly through Sam’s duffel, feeling for a clean t-shirt, sweatshirt, a change of socks, because if he’s running again, he needs people not to call the cops on sight. He binds Sam tighter than he ever would a normal person and leaves him on the floor, not trusting him not to break any furniture he ties him to. Sam’s face is still slack with unconsciousness.

Outside, he slides into the Impala, rubbing an unsteady hand up the steering wheel, over the stick.

“Oh, baby, have I missed you,” he says, and rummages under the passenger seat, coming up with Led Zeppelin. It feels like false courage but he cranks the volume anyway.

Three hours later, on a stretch of empty road, the car dies. No warning, nothing, and Dean barely manages to pull off the road. When he checks under the hood, everything seems fine.

He tucks the knife into his waistband, tugs his shirt down over the handle, and stands at the edge of the road, thumb out. It takes him too long to flag down a ride. When he finally slides into the truck’s cab, the big guy behind the wheel asks where he’s headed. The man’s wearing a hat so grimy that the logo is indistinguishable and he’s got dirty salt and pepper scruff around his face, but his smile is bright and friendly, his eyes clear and blue, and Dean shrugs and says anywhere.

The cab smells of pine air freshener and long hours on the road, the seats comfy with age, the upholstery cracked and worn. The driver’s name is Kevin and they talk about films Dean hasn’t seen, the road, the crazy weather reports on the radio, Kevin’s daughter at college - studying psychology and he’s never been so proud of her. He even shows Dean a picture, dog-eared and tucked between the visor and the roof of the truck, like he shows it to every hitcher he picks up. Maybe he does.

When Dean rolls up the sleeves of Sam’s sweatshirt, Kevin raises an eyebrow at his rubbed raw wrists. Dean smiles and shakes his head like he’s just a little bit embarrassed. He doesn’t look at the abraded skin himself.

“Yeah,” he says, and gives Kevin a meaningful look. “A girl. Wildcat in bed, if you know what I mean. And before you ask,” he spreads his hands at the open space before them, “I’ve gotta be running from something, right?” He gives him a conspiratorial wink, and Kevin laughs from his belly.

“Got in a bit over your head, hey, son?” he asks.

Dean grimaces. “You could say that.”

At a truck stop two hours later, Kevin buys Dean a cup of coffee and a cheeseburger without being asked to, and Dean nods gratefully at him before inhaling it all in less than a minute. It’s a pleasure not having to be hunched over his knees to eat something for once. They talk some more; Dean asks Kevin whether he’s heard of this crazy black-eyed virus shit that’s going around, and tells him that he’s got a doctor friend who swears that laying salt at your windows and doors is the best way to stop it.

“Something about the purity or molecular structure or, Christ, I dunno.”

It’s getting dark when they hit the road again, and Dean’s dozing with his head against the cool glass of the window when Kevin says, “What the hell?” and wrestles the wheel over to the right as the truck shudders to a halt on the shoulder. The dashboard’s lights flicker once, twice, then out.

Kevin’s frowning in the sudden silence. “Well, that’s never happened before,” he says. He twists the keys again and gets nothing.

Dean sits up, slowly taking off his seatbelt, his eyes scanning the darkness outside. There’s no one else on the road.

Kevin tries the radio and gets a burst of static, loud and harsh, and he flicks it off with a grimace, frowning in the gloom.

“Kid,” he says, “you got a cell on you? I gotta get a hold of base.”

“No,” Dean says, low and urgent, leaning forward in his seat. The shape of the knife is a hard imprint against his side, so close to his skin. “Listen to me, Kev. You’ve got to get out right here and run, okay? I don’t care where and I know it sounds crazy, but you’ve got to run - away from this truck and away from  _me_ , you got that?”

Kevin isn’t listening to him. “Now there’s no reason to panic,” he says, peering into his side mirror. “There’s a car pulling over right now behind us. Probably saw us in trouble and figured we could use a hand. I’ll go see whether they’ve got a cell I can use.” He’s already got his seatbelt off, the door half open.

“No,” Dean says, forcefully, grabbing his arm, and Kevin stares at him like he’s gone mad. “No, you don’t know what’s out there.”

“I’m hoping a cell phone,” Kevin says, a faint smile on his face, like he’s covering the fact that he thinks he’s made a massive misjudgement and Dean’s actually a grade-A psycho. “You gonna let me go now, son?”

“Wait,” Dean says, because this guy has been fucking  _kind_  to him. “Please. Just - let me do it. Let me go, okay? For your daughter,” he adds, when Kevin eyes him doubtfully. “If they’ve got a cell, I’ll bring it right back. But you’ve got to stay in the truck.”

Kevin looks at him. “Are you in some kind of trouble, Dean?” he asks, slowly.

Dean shakes his head as he opens the cab door. “Not the sort you’re thinking, no. Stay here.”

He slips to the ground and treads as lightly as possible through the shadows, slowly pulling the knife out of his waistband as he ducks down, scanning beneath the belly of the truck to the far side, through the wheels. The steady silence is oppressive, his blood hammering through his veins, and he wishes more than anything that he had a gun. The knife handle is already slippery with sweat in his grip, feeling all too insubstantial.

Cautiously, he peers around the back of the truck. The familiar bulk of the Impala sitting in the dirt is like a kick in the balls. He doesn’t want to think about how the hell Sam managed to pick her up. Sam isn’t in the driver’s seat. Sam isn’t anywhere.

It’s then that his spine decides it wants to bend in half.

A cry of agony is ripped from his throat and Dean drops to his knees, drops the knife, gasping into the dirt, his back arched and his hands scrabbling uselessly at the ground. It feels like every nerve is on fire, like someone is twisting his spinal cord into knots, and he can’t see through the tears of pain in his eyes.

A pair of boots stops in front of him, and Sam hunkers down.

“Dean, Dean, Dean,” he says. “That was really fucking stupid.”

Dean can’t help but agree. He should have killed Sam. He should have killed himself.

“No,” Sam says, suddenly fierce, curling a broad hand around the back of Dean’s neck and forcing him further into the ground. The pain stops, leaving behind just a bone-deep ache, and Dean struggles not to choke on road dirt, trying to get his hands under him, but Sam’s stronger than any human has a right to be. “No, you don’t get to make that choice, do you hear?”

“Hey,” Kevin calls from behind, his voice not so friendly anymore, pitch-perfect to accompany the sound of a shotgun being chambered. “Everything okay here?”

Dean tries to twist out from Sam’s hand; says, desperately, “No, Sam. Don’t.”

Sam doesn’t let him up. “Oh,” he calls back, a smile in his voice, “everything’s just fine.”

It doesn’t take much. Just a slight tightening of Sam’s fingers around Dean’s neck, a brief contraction of the air above him making it even harder to breathe. Kevin gargles when he dies, and Dean thinks it’s possibly the worst sound he’s ever heard. Something splatters on the ground about him, and he knows there’s a crimson spray up the back of his jeans.

The burger the man had paid for wants to come back up. Dean swallows and trembles when Sam yanks him unceremoniously to his feet. Kevin is a bloody lump on the ground and that’s Dean’s fault, his fault and no one else’s, he knew perfectly well what Sam was capable of.

“Don’t touch me,” he mutters, like it will make some sort of difference, as Sam drags him to the car.

“Shut up,” Sam says, and touches him enough to tie his ankles to his wrists on the backseat, before going back to pick up the knife.

The trip back is measured in how long it takes Dean’s hands to go numb, how soon his muscles start cramping. With his cheek pressed against the leather of the backseat, he can’t see Sam - doesn’t want to see him - but he can feel his brother’s displeasure in the way he guns the engine, how he twists the wheel a little too sharp on corners, the slam of brakes.

Hours later, when the car finally grinds to a halt, Sam opens one of the back doors and leans over him, his shirt tails tickling over Dean’s ear, picking at the knots, his breathing a little too heavy. Dean grunts in pain when his legs come loose, his eyes watering as blood rushes back into his hands and feet, and Sam doesn’t give him nearly enough time to recover. He half drags, half carries him back into their room, Dean’s legs fiery with sensation as he tries to put weight on them.

Sam leaves him gasping on the bed. He goes into the bathroom and the shower starts up, the sound of water hissing over tiles. When he comes back, face grim, there’s none of his careful directions. He just rolls Dean heavily onto his stomach, pressing his shoulders hard into the mattress, pulling at the rope around his wrists until it comes undone. Without a word, Sam puts his hands under the hem of Dean’s sweatshirt, Dean’s t-shirt, his fingers warm against bare skin, and tugs the material roughly up Dean’s body, over his head and off his arms. Then he reties his wrists.

Sam’s stiff with anger when he yanks Dean to his feet. He puts a strong hand on Dean’s shoulder and pushes him into the bathroom, stops him, presses him against the wall. He undoes Dean’s bloodied jeans, taking his time in unbuckling his belt, fingers on his fly. Dean fixes his eyes on the cloudy mirror above the sink and stands still and awkward as his brother pulls his shorts down along with the denim. To his side, the shower is running hot, steam already rising past the curtain.

Dean hasn’t had hot water on his skin for a long time.

Sam pulls his shirt over his head, starts opening the button of his own jeans, and Dean stares at him, bone-weary and not quite getting what his brother’s doing. Then he does.

“No way,” he says. “No fucking way.”

Naked, Sam pushes back the shower curtain and wraps his hand around the back of Dean’s neck, ignoring him. Forced into the stall, Dean blinks under the hot spray for a moment. Then Sam shoulders in behind him, and Dean moves to press himself as far into a corner as possible, trying not to touch his brother, trying not to touch the man who’s just torn someone inside out without blinking.

Sam lets him be. He washes his hair, face tilted up into the spray, then soaps up. It’s only once he’s done that he reaches for Dean, wraps a hand around the ball of his shoulder, and Dean’s got nowhere to go. He growls, tries to twist out of the slippery grip, angry and resentful.

“No, you asshole,” he grits out. “No. Get your hands off me.”

Sam doesn’t listen to him, just slams Dean back against the shower wall, once, twice, and when he tries to pull him under the spray again, Dean goes, the fight knocked clear out of him. Sam takes his time washing Dean’s hair, his fingers careful on the curve of his skull. Dean winces once, and Sam murmurs, “Sorry, sorry,” his fingers skirting around the tender spot, like he knows exactly where it is.

Later, Sam works the pale complimentary soap into a lather and pulls Dean back against his chest, his forearm slung hot and heavy over Dean’s shoulder. It feels fucking weird, Sam pressed up his back like that, naked and wet, and Dean stiffens.

“You have something you want to share with the rest of the group, Sammy?”

“Shut up,” Sam says, soft in his ear, his arm tightening over Dean’s chest. He starts smearing the soap over Dean’s skin, across his ribs, over his stomach, his fingers creeping right down to pubic hair. Dean holds very still, shuts his eyes. This is fucked up on too many levels to count.

“Do you remember this?” Sam murmurs, against his neck. “Huh, Dean? You remember this?”

Dean doesn’t answer. He can barely hear Sam over the thrumming of water against his skin, on the tiles, and it makes it easier to pretend this isn’t happening. Sam’s hand grips his flank, fingers pressing hard into the muscle, then moves across, circling loosely around Dean’s dick. Dean squares his jaw and tilts his head up into the hot spray, letting the water run down his face, burning into his eyes when he opens them.

Sam’s grip is slick with soap, working up and down, up and down, slow and sure. Dean has never felt less turned on in his life. Kevin’s face is fresh in his mind, choking on his own death, and his dick doesn’t harden. Sam huffs amusement into his hair.

“You know, Dean,” he says, “I’m the one that’s meant to be angry with  _you_.”

“Yeah, well. I didn’t just kill someone.”

Sam shrugs; Dean feels the movement in the slick glide of skin against skin. Behind him, his tied hands are at groin level and he can feel Sam thick and hot against his fingers.

“I’ll kill anyone,” Sam says, soft and intimate. His hand stills and he just holds Dean’s cock, cupping its weight. “Next time you try to escape, you stop for gas and I’ll kill the girl behind the counter, the guy sweeping outside. You stay at a motel and I’ll kill the sweet old woman who gave you your key - all the guests staying there, as well. You smile at someone in the street, a girl, maybe, a kid, and I’ll kill her too, spread her ribs and bare her lungs and heart.”

Sam presses a kiss to his neck, swift and sweet and cruel. “You keep that in mind, okay?”

His fingers leave Dean’s dick, then, creep lower, gently touching his balls, lifting them, like he’s curious. Dean keeps very, very still. Sam hums into his skin and drags his hand back up, splaying his fingers hot against Dean’s stomach, just beneath his bellybutton, stroking over the skin there with the pad of his thumb.

“I’ve missed you,” he says, a little wistfully. Dean shuts his eyes tight and doesn’t say anything, his mouth twisted with grief.

Later, Sam dries him carefully with one of the stiff motel towels. Then he puts him to bed, wrists retied around the headboard, and leaves him alone.

~

The rope gets changed for handcuffs after that. Sam goes out for food and comes back with the cuffs, shiny and new, and doesn’t let Dean have any of the lukewarm soup he brought back until they’re secure around his wrists. If Dean isn’t attached to the bed, his arms are fixed behind him.

Two nights later, Dean says, “You can read my mind, can’t you?” He’s been nursing the idea like a sore tooth, probing at it with his tongue and making it worse. It freaks the fuck out of him, and it’s taken him some time to summon up the balls to ask.

Sam doesn’t say anything for a while. He’s reading a different book now, pages old and thick, the spine cracking whenever he opens it. When he finally looks up, he shrugs, like it’s nothing. “Sometimes.”

“Yeah?” Dean says, belligerent and looking for a fight. He jerks the cuffs against the headboard. “Well, you fucking suck at it. What sort of crazy evil mastermind psychic are you if you can’t even tell when I’m planning on making a run for it, huh?”

Sam closes the book and stands up. “Honestly,” he says, “if I was gonna try and do it here, right now, like this, it would hurt too much for it to be worth it.” He walks over to the head of the bed and looks down at Dean, head tilted to one side, considering. “I get flashes of things from time to time, though. When you’re upset or angry. Or scared.”

Dean swallows and bites back a retort. His mouth is dry.

“Of course,” Sam continues, and reaches out, tracing fingers down the length of Dean’s bare forearm. “It makes things a lot easier if I’m touching you, skin to skin, like this. Direct contact, and I can pretty much see anything I want.”

Dean growls and yanks his arm away, the cuffs biting into his wrists. His heart is a painful throb in his chest and Sam smiles. Dean wants to hit him and when Sam’s smile deepens at the corners, he knows it’s because he caught that thought and  _Jesus fucking Christ._

He should have never stopped running.

~

Sam starts circling back shortly after that - back through Iowa, down into Illinois. Dean’s given up asking where they’re headed because it doesn’t look like they’re headed anywhere much at all. The hours spent in the car are some of the dullest in his life, with the awkward stilted conversation and grey land blurring past the window. Before, Dean had occupied himself with thoughts and plans of escape, of how the apocalypse might still be averted, of how he could stop Sam. Now, he can’t even check out a girl on the side of the road in case Sam catches what he’s doing. Dean’s good at not thinking, had always considered it something of an art, but even he has his limits when days stretch out fifteen or sixteen hours long. Sometimes he sleeps. Mostly he just stares out the window at the world slowly being consumed by the onset of winter, black smudges under his eyes and his face pale in the side mirror. He’s been still so long that he’s becoming jittery, panic a slow burn lining his stomach.

“Okay,” Sam says, one day, out of the blue. “Okay.” He pulls off the highway, up onto the shoulder. Unlocks the cuffs. “Go on,” he says, gesturing outside.

Dean stares at him warily. “What?” he asks.

“You have three hours,” Sam says. “Three hours, and if you’re not back by then, you’ll be goddamn sorry.”

“You’re serious?”

“Go on, get.”

Dean lets himself out and stands in the cold air, leaning back against the car. There are trees around him, most without leaves, and his breath is white mist in front of his face. He glances at his watch; he’s got three hours. He starts to walk.

When he can’t see the car anymore, can’t feel the itch of Sam’s eyes between his shoulder blades, he starts to run. The ground is uneven beneath his feet, dead leaves and fallen branches, and he doesn’t care. He dodges in between the trees, his breath coming hard, the cold making his chest ache. He’s out of shape but the burn in his limbs has never felt so good. He doesn’t care where he’s going, just knows he has three hours and he’s not going to waste a single minute.

It’s just beginning to get dark when he arrives back at the car, sweaty and exhausted. He thumps down into the passenger seat and holds out his hands without having to be asked. Sam doesn’t appear to have moved the entire time, but there’s a small smile on his face when he looks at Dean and snaps on the cuffs, a relaxing of the rigid set of his shoulders. His fingers linger at Dean's wrists, hot against air-chilled skin, rubbing gently into the bone.

If Dean had thought it was a test - in any way not genuine - he would have made Sam come and get him. It was the principle of the thing.

~

The next day, Sam shakes Dean awake with a rough hand on his chest.

“We’re leaving,” he says.

Dean stares blearily up at him through gritty eyes, not quite getting it. They pulled off the highway around midnight last night, Dean yawning wide enough to crack his jaw. Now the light filtering in past the motel’s thin curtains is the pale griminess of not-quite-dawn and he can’t have been asleep for more than five hours.

Sam is already undoing the cuff around the headboard, tugging Dean’s arm down and rolling him onto his side without warning, gripping Dean’s other wrist as he snaps the cuffs closed behind his back. Dean grumbles into the pillow he’s got his face mashed into and thinks he’s not at all awake enough for this.

“Up,” Sam says, voice tight.

Dean groans, shifts, and apparently doesn’t move fast enough for Sam’s liking. Fingers wrap around his throat and Sam drags him off the bed, dumps him to the floor, still tangled in sheets. Dean breathes in sharply through his teeth as his whole weight lands awkwardly on his hands, dull pain shooting up his forearms.

“Sonuva--” he bites back, wincing.

Sam throws Dean’s pants at his head. “Get dressed.”

Dean stares up at him, wants to ask how the hell he’s meant to manage his jeans with his fucking hands  _cuffed at his back,_   _genius_ , but Sam already looks set to go off, looming over him, his eyes dark and narrowed, and Dean thinks better of it.

“Okay,” he says, slowly, warily.

Sam waits for him to shuffle around, trying to get his jeans on with just his legs and sheer determination, then picks up their bags and opens the room’s door, hauling the duffels outside to the car. Dean’s wrists throb, bruised, one already beginning to tighten with telltale swelling. With denim tangled hopelessly at mid-calf level, he gives up wrestling with his pants and leans back against the frame of the bed, waiting for Sam to finish up. He can hear birds singing in the early light and then the trunk slams shut and his brother is back in the room, standing over him.

“I can’t -” Dean starts, but Sam’s already bending down to drag him up. He pushes him backwards onto the bed and Dean awkwardly lies half-off the mattress as Sam tugs his jeans up around his hips. Dean hates it, hates being goddamn  _handled_ , his wrist hurting like a bitch, but he grits his teeth, endures, and it doesn’t take long before Sam’s pulling him to his feet.

He gets shoved all the way to the Impala, gets shoved into his seat, too, and Sam’s as cranky as fuck about something, Dean just doesn’t know what. It’s not knowing that sets him on edge, and he doesn’t say anything when Sam starts the car up, revving her too high and gunning out of the parking lot. Instead, he wedges himself into the corner between seat and door in an effort to take the pressure off his aching wrist and doesn’t look at his brother in case he makes whatever this is worse.

He manages to last about two hours, and when he can’t hold it any longer, says, “I need to piss, Sam.”

Sam doesn’t say anything, but he pulls onto the shoulder and throws the Impala into park, violence still rolling thickly off him. He lets Dean out, manhandling him into the sparse tree cover, and it’s not the first time Dean regrets the loss of his jacket. The ground is hard beneath him, the trees bare of leaves, and it’s too goddamn cold out for a single layer and bare arms. He hunches in on himself, goes where Sam pushes, and waits for Sam to free his hands when they finally stop.

Rough fingers at his zipper, and Dean stands rigid as Sam pulls out his dick, aiming it for him.

“Jesus,” Dean mutters. “’Cos that’s not freaking awkward.” He thinks about waterfalls, the sound of running water,  _anything_ ; it doesn’t work. Sam’s fingers are like burning brands on his cock, his thumb stroking back and forth at the base, and Dean’s bladder is tight and full, almost painful. He grits his teeth.

“Cut it out.”

“No,” Sam says. It sounds like he’s enjoying himself. “You said you needed to go, so go.”

“Jesus,” Dean snaps. “I just don’t need you fucking  _groping_  me while I do it, alright.”

He pushes backwards, not even thinking about it, fed up with the whole situation, boxed in. His shoulder connects with Sam’s chest, and he must have thrown his brother off balance because there’s the sharp crunch of leaves under stumbling feet and he’s got a fraction of a second longer than he expects to brace himself. Then large hands shove him forward, one at his arm and the other twisted viciously in his hair. Sam bends him in half, an arm wrapped around his waist, and presses himself up against Dean’s back. Dean’s dick is still hanging out of his pants and Sam reaches around, grabs it, squeezes it tight.

He puts his lips to Dean’s ear. “If I want this,” he says, low and hard, “I will fucking  _take it_ , do you understand? If I want to put you on your hands and knees and fuck you into the ground, you’re not going to stop me. If I tell you to put your mouth around my dick and suck, you don’t get to fucking  _argue_ about it, okay?” His breathing is hot and heavy, erratic.

Dean stares at the brown mulch at his feet, old rotting leaves, solid dirt. Sam is pressing hard against his wrist, catching it awkwardly between their bodies and the cuffs, and it fucking  _smarts_.

“Fuck you,” he says, unhappily. “All I needed to do was pee.”

He prepares himself for anger, more violence, but nothing comes. Sam just continues to hold him bent over the ground, his breath against Dean’s ear, his body warm at his back. It’s painful, uncomfortable, and maybe half a minute ticks by. Then Sam’s fingers loosen slightly, and he straightens, bringing Dean up with him.

“Come on,” he says, and it’s almost gentle. His grip on Dean’s cock changes, not vicious or cruel anymore, but about as close to impersonal as a hand around a dick can be. “Come on,” he repeats, softer.

Dean chokes and  _goes_ , his face hot in the chill air. It takes a while, and afterwards Sam shakes him off and carefully tucks him back in. They walk side by side back to the car, Sam’s hand hovering at Dean’s elbow but not pushing, and when they arrive, Sam undoes the cuff around Dean’s swollen wrist and wordlessly attaches Dean to the arm rest on the inside of the door instead.

Dean stays silent, not looking at his brother. He rests his throbbing hand on his knee and lets the ache distract him. Pain is something he can understand, at least.

~

They drive for most of three days. Twice, Sam pulls off the highway, lets the seat back and just goes to sleep on the side of the road. Dean hasn’t seen his brother sleep in a long time, and he stays awake to watch him in the light of passing cars, notes that going dark side doesn’t stop Sam from drooling or huffing in his dreams, and the familiarity of it makes Dean’s chest go tight. Both times, Sam doesn’t sleep longer than three hours, and he wakes up more irritable, wound tighter, just to start driving again. Dean quickly learns it’s safer to keep his mouth shut and his eyes off his brother.

Towards the end of the third day, Sam’s shoulders relax. He buys hot food at a rest stop and they sit in the parked car to eat instead of eating on the road, windows open to air out the staleness inside. With the trash disposed of and full on grease, they start moving again at a more legal speed, Sam’s foot easing up off the gas. To Dean, it feels like a storm has passed safely over them, and he doesn’t ask Sam about it, just slumps in his seat and breathes better than he has for a while, three days’ worth of old fear leaving him worn down and restless.

They get a motel room for the night. When Sam shuts the door behind them and turns on the light, Dean stares.

“No double rooms left, huh?” he says, just a little bit terrified, his heart jackrabbiting because he spent a good five minutes in the parking lot waiting for Sam to get a key, and he knows perfectly well that the place is goddamn empty. Sam just gives him a hard look.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Sam doesn’t say anything and Dean’s gut clenches. He wants to turn around, get out of the room, but Sam is watching him carefully and Dean’s not stupid.  
  
He takes as long as he can brushing his teeth, spitting and rinsing, spitting and rinsing, brushing again until his mouth is numb and tingling with mint. Then he splashes water onto his face and stares at himself in the mirror for a long time. He badly needs a shave and maybe a month’s worth of uninterrupted sleep. His skin is pale and drawn, and there are new stress lines around his mouth, around his eyes, creased deep into his forehead. His hair is too long, limp with grease, and he spreads his lips into a meaningless smile and can’t see himself anywhere in his reflection.

Nothing will make him venture out of the bathroom and Sam has to come and get him in the end. He tugs him down onto the bed when Dean tries to baulk and wraps his arms around him to keep him still, puts his nose in Dean’s hair. “Relax,” Sam breathes, and Dean lies rigid and unmoving, expecting hands to drift down to the waistband of his shorts. But Sam just nuzzles against him, rubbing a soothing hand over his chest. “No,” he murmurs into Dean’s skin. “Not tonight. Go to sleep.”

Dean can’t. Asleep, Sam is a hot, heavy presence at his back, breathing slow and deep into his hair. Dean shuts his eyes and lies still, feeling suffocated, overwhelmed. His eyes are grainy with exhaustion, his mind slipping over thoughts without focus, and he’s too tired to stop himself imagining that everything is how it was before: that he still has a year to live, that Sam is his Sam again. Sam could never keep his hands to himself whenever they had to share a bed. Dean would wake up tangled in sheets and heavy limbs and he’d breathe morning-stale breath into Sam’s face until his brother woke up, cussing and shoving and telling Dean he was gross.

In the morning, Sam lets him sleep in. Dean wakes up to coffee and a donut, and they watch TV together like it’s perfectly normal, Sam slouched back against the headboard, his shoulder brushing against Dean’s whenever he lifts his arm to flick channels. He’s relaxed, sprawled over the mattress and sometimes even smiling at a joke on the TV.

Dean thinks it’s like something out of the freaking Twilight Zone.

They stay at the motel for two more nights, and whatever Sam had said in the forest, he doesn’t try to force him. They sleep together, Dean waking both mornings to Sam’s dick jutting against his ass, hard and hot, and both times he pretends to be asleep when Sam rolls over and takes care of himself, breathing hard as he pumps his dick up into his fist, his other hand under Dean’s t-shirt, fingers pressing into the muscle of Dean’s back. Dean is certain Sam knows he’s awake, thinks maybe his brother actually waits for him before beginning, and he stares dead ahead at the far wall, trying to ignore the way the bed moves and how Sam’s fingers feel on his skin; trying to block his ears so he doesn’t have to listen to the noise of slick flesh against palm, Sam’s breath hitching, the throaty groan when he comes.

The morning that they leave, Dean gets half-hard in the shower without Sam even trying, and when Sam finally drops the washcloth and wraps his fingers around Dean’s cock, pressing between the curves of his ass and rubbing the blunt edge of a knuckle against his hole, Dean grunts and comes even as he tries to push away.

“It’s okay,” Sam murmurs, arms wrapped around him, riding through Dean’s violent struggles. “It’s okay.”

“Shut up,” Dean grits out, heart thudding with orgasm, hating himself.

~

Back on the road, he thinks a lot about Bobby and about how Bobby died. Dean had been chasing after Sam for months, always just two steps behind, and he doesn’t remember a whole lot from that day when he had finally caught up. Everything is a meaningless jumble, blurry and painful, everything but the sounds Bobby made, everything but what Sam’s face looked like, pale and stark in the gloom, horrifically unchanged after a year of murdering people he would have once called friends. Sam’s hand had been slick with Bobby’s blood as he traced steady fingers down Dean’s cheek, and it was that moment when Dean’s insides had crumpled, tears streaming unchecked down his face, realisation sinking in: there would be no saving his brother.  _This_ was Sam now, and Bobby had died because Dean had refused to believe him when the man had said his brother was gone, that Sam was something else now, something irreversibly evil. When the invisible force pressing him to the wall had lifted, Dean had staggered and run, not looking back, wanting as far away from that touch as possible.

He hadn’t stopped running for half a year.

“Stop it,” Sam says, suddenly, eyes fixed on the road ahead.

Dean doesn’t answer. He can’t even bring himself to look at his brother, so he stares out the window at the brown, empty fields rushing by. He feels dirty, wretched, like he wants to crawl out of his own skin. He tries but he can’t block out the sense-memory of Sam’s hand on him in the shower, jerking him off hot and steady - how he had  _liked_ it - so he overlays it with Bobby’s death, with Ellen’s, with all the other hunters and the countless civilians that had been butchered.

The guilt helps.

The next motel they stop at, Sam gets a king and cuffs Dean too tight to the frame before shucking his jeans and climbing in next to him, wrapping himself around him. Dean tries to put an elbow in his face, a knee in his groin, and Sam growls and presses him flat.

“I still have the rope, Dean. Don’t think I won’t make it so you can’t move at all.”

“You’re such a romantic,” Dean says, smiling up into Sam’s face, hard and mean, too much teeth. “What’s the matter? You leave all your roofies back in hell?”

Sam leans in so close that Dean can smell him, road-sweat and dust. “If I wanted you like that, don’t think I’d need drugs,” he says.

Dean glares at him, but when Sam eases up a little bit, he doesn’t kick out again. Instead, he rolls onto his side and hunches his shoulders, twitching with the overwhelming need to  _get away_  when Sam plasters himself to his back once more, hot and oppressive.

Falling asleep isn’t easy and his dreams aren’t happy. Dark and miserable, he wakes up sweaty and aching, his fists clenched and his muscles tight with strain, more exhausted than when he had shut his eyes.

~

Three motels and three kings later, Sam pulls off to park on the roadside and turns to look at him.

“Same deal,” he says, bluntly. “And if you try to run, I’ll goddamn hamstring you.”

Dean stares at him, hollow eyed.

“You need to get over this,” Sam says, digging out the keys and roughly tugging him over to uncuff him. “What you think about, you need to stop it.”

Dean laughs without humour, worn down and close to not caring anymore. “Sure thing.”

He rubs his wrists, goes for the door handle, and stops when Sam grips his arm.

“Three hours,” Sam says, hard.

Dean nods, doesn’t look at him. Sam lets go and he gets out the car, bracing himself for the cold that knifes through him. Scrubland stretches in front of him, to his sides, and over the rise there are trees standing black and skeletal against the sky. Dean’s hands are unsteady, his limbs leaden with tiredness, but he starts running anyway, his breath coming hard. It feels good.

He’s shaking by the time he gets among the trees and he has to stop, bent over his knees, panting. The air is still bitter but he’s warm with pumping blood and it doesn’t bother him. Waiting for his heart rate to slow, he walks further in, careful where he puts his feet. He doesn’t once look back towards the Impala.

He’s meandering between the trees, a good distance in, when he stops, strips off his t-shirt. His nipples peak with cold, the hairs on his arms rise, and he starts tearing the material into thick strips, tying them together tightly, twisting it for strength. He doesn’t think anything of it until he begins fashioning a noose at one end, and then he realises what he’s doing, realises what it means, tries to stop himself.

He can’t. There are whispers in his mind, curling around his consciousness, cold and unfeeling. They sound like his breathing, his heartbeat, his thoughts, almost not there.

His fingers are deft on the fabric, finishing the noose off neatly. Shivering with more than cold, he walks to a nearby tree, ties one end of the makeshift rope to a low-hanging branch. Above him, there’s the rustle of wings and the jagged shriek of a crow as it takes flight, echoing too loud through the empty woods, and Dean is fighting every step of the way, his jaw clenched tight with effort, his head screaming at him.

His own hands lower the business end of the rope over his head, cinching the noose around his neck, and he drops down almost to his knees on the cold, hard mud, letting the rope draw tight around his neck, cutting off his air supply.

Self-strangulation isn’t the quickest way to go. Dean hangs there and listens to the whispering that twists in his mind, letting gravity do most of the work for him, his eyes watering and black spots dancing across his vision, the rope cutting into his neck and choking his breaths. He’s trembling in the winter air, slumped and unmoving, his hands loose and useless at his sides. Panic is a tight knot in the centre of his chest because he doesn’t want to go like this, doesn’t want to be found hanging at the end of a rope, limp and dead and cold, by an angry Sam however many hours later. It comes as something of a surprise to Dean, but he doesn’t feel ready to go just yet. Sam paid dearly for this crappy excuse of a life and that still means a hell of a lot. 

He’s on the verge of unconsciousness, noise rushing in his ears and his whole head pounding with his heartbeat. Then, suddenly, he’s shoved backwards, up off the ground. He thumps hard against the tree trunk, pinned there by invisible pressure, feet dangling, his head lolling forward. The noose loosens just enough and he breathes in raggedly, filling his chest and coughing, his head spinning and a line of fire striped across his neck. The rope hangs loosely at his side, brushing against his bare skin.

The whispering becomes louder, burning through his brain, terrible and resolute. His hands are even more desperate to grab the rope, want to tug it tight again, finish what they started, but he can’t move and they just twitch ineffectually by his sides.

He wants to laugh but it hurts too much, so he just hangs there, gasping.

He hears Sam before he sees him, crashing fast through the undergrowth, and his hands go limp, finally his own, the touch in his mind fading. He raises his head and finds his brother among the trees, watches him approach. Sam slows to a jog as he gets nearer, then to jerky, stiff steps, but he doesn’t stop until he’s got his hands splayed on Dean’s chest, lowering him carefully to the ground as the force keeping him pinned lifts. Breathing hard, Sam kneels beside him, high spots of colour on his cheeks, and his eyes are furious as he runs two fingers under the noose, loosening it gently before pulling it off. Dean sits slumped against the tree like a rag doll, shivering and shaking with adrenaline, unable to do anything else.

“You’re okay,” Sam breathes, unable to stop touching him, his hands cupping his face, brushing against his neck, smoothing down his arms. “You’re okay, Dean. Come on. That’s it.”

He puts a solid arm around Dean’s back, pulling him forward until Dean’s got his face against Sam’s chest, breathing him in. Dean can smell Sam’s panic, his sweat, and the heartbeat against his cheek is too fast. Sam rubs his hands roughly up Dean’s arms, over his back, warmth tingling in his wake like proof of life, and it feels okay to just rest there, leaning against his brother, just the two of them against the world.

Damp leaves rustle under Sam’s weight as he shifts, bringing a hand up and tilting Dean’s chin backwards so he can look into his eyes; Sam’s expression is terrible. “That son of a bitch won’t manage that again,” he says, a promise. His arm tightens around Dean for a moment, just holding him. Then he leans away enough to shrug out of his hoodie and bundles Dean up in it before lifting him to his feet, supporting him as Dean stumbles. “Come on,” Sam says. “Let’s get you back to the car.”

The walk back is long and cold and slow. Dean could probably manage it on his own, but he doesn’t let go of Sam and Sam doesn’t let go of him. Sam’s hand is tight around his waist, keeping him close, and Dean’s got his arm hooked over Sam’s shoulders. They don’t talk.

Sam puts him into the Impala and goes around to the trunk, returning with the old army blanket Dean had bought years ago. He bats Dean’s hands away when Dean tries to take it from him, and Dean lets himself be wrapped up and tucked in, letting his head fall back against the seat. Sam doesn’t cuff him again, just shuts the passenger side door, and Dean watches him as he stands outside, shoulders rigid and breathing hard, staring back towards the stretch of woods, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Finally, he turns and gets in the car. He doesn’t say anything, just reaches out and puts a hand on Dean’s knee, gripping tight and closing his eyes, breathing in deeply. Watching his brother get himself back under control, Dean remembers the expression on Sam’s face when he had found him, remembers how careful Sam’s hands had been when he had slipped the noose from around his neck; Sam had been terrified.

It’s the first time since everything went to hell that Dean allows himself to consider that maybe Sam cares for him just as much as he once did. The thought rocks him to his very core, hollow and painful, because it shouldn’t be possible, evil is evil, and Dean knows that first hand: Sam had taught him it.

He wonders what has changed.

Finally, Sam takes his hand away and starts the engine. He makes a messy U-turn, tires crunching through grit on the other side of the road, and drives a good ten miles back the way they had come before taking a different exit. They’re not headed anywhere, Dean knows that now, and it took being half-throttled for things to start making a dreadful kind of sense.

“So this is running, right?” he asks. His neck is bruised deep, his voice coming out as a pained gasp. “All this driving.”

Sam doesn’t look at him.

Dean shifts uncomfortably. “Back there. That was Andy, wasn’t it? With his freaky mind control thing. So you’re - you’re gonna have to explain this to me, Sam, because last I checked, it was you running the damn show.”

Sam’s hands shift on the wheel, tighten, and Dean doesn’t think he’s going to answer.

Then: “They want you dead.”

Dean gingerly prods at his neck and winces, snorts softly. “I’d never have guessed. Throw me a bone here, Sammy.”

“With you dead, I’ll go back to them.” Sam glances at him, smiles grim and small. “Humanity probably wouldn’t appreciate that.”

Dean takes his time processing the words. The Impala thrums beneath him, through the blanket and to his skin, and he’s not cold anymore. “Do you --” He swallows. He’s finding it difficult to look at Sam and he grits his teeth, tells himself to fucking  _grow a pair_. “So that whole handing the world over to hell thing, you’re not -” Sam looks at him. “Not interested anymore?”

His heart feels like a stone in his chest, heavy and aching. He waits.

Sam watches the road instead of meeting his eyes and shrugs, like it’s no big deal at all. “Maybe.”

Dean has no answer to that.

~

Whatever else the consequence of Andy finding him in the woods, Dean feels more alive than he has in a long time. There’s something about the very real threat of death that sharpens the world, like wiping a smeared window clean. He hums along to a song on the radio, squints in disgust at the china kittens on the chest of drawers in the motel room, enjoys his pizza so much that Sam gives him a couple of pieces of his mushroom and ham, even if it hurts his throat to swallow.

Sam, though, stays stiff and silent. As soon as they were both inside, he had locked the door of the motel room like it would help if hell decided to come a-knocking, standing by the window and gazing out into the dark parking lot. He had moved since then, but not far, and now he sits in the chair in the corner, eyes flicking between the window and the bed.

“Maybe you could give me a gun,” Dean says, his voice still rough and painful. He’s propped up against the headboard, and shrugs defensively when Sam turns cold eyes to look at him. “I’m just saying. If I could protect myself --”

“No,” Sam says.

Dean huffs, not exactly surprised, but not exactly happy about the situation either. He fingers his neck; the skin is rough with abrasion, bruises biting deep. Sam catches what he’s doing, his face darkening as his gaze lingers on Dean’s throat. Dean pulls his hand away abruptly.

“So,” he says. “How many are we up against?”

“All of them.” Sam pauses, his brow drawing down into a frown. “But not Jake. I never brought him back.”

Dean waits but Sam doesn’t look like he’s going to expand on that.

“Okay,” he says, with a tight nod. “Okay, this is manageable. What are a load of zombie psychics to the guy who brought them back, right? How many do you reckon you could face in one go?” He frowns, thinking aloud. “Or maybe there’s some way to reverse it, send their souls back. But I guess all we have to do is find out where they’re hiding and pick them off, one by one, and then -”

“No,” Sam interrupts him.

“But -”

“No.” Sam’s eyes focus cool and steady on Dean from across the room. “It’s too dangerous to take you with me, and it’s too dangerous for me to leave you behind. If they attack us directly, I’ll have no choice but to deal with them, but until that happens it’s safer to run.”

“ _Safer_?” Dean chokes. “You have got to be fucking kidding me. Safer is hanging around, waiting for one of them to take another pop at me? Maybe next time it’ll be drowning. Hell, that wouldn’t be too hard - run a sink full of water, bend over, breathe in. Quick and easy. Lucky for us your friends are a load of dumbfucks, really.”

“Shut up,” Sam says, sharply. Agitated, he gets up, hands clenched into fists at his side. “They won’t get anywhere near you. I made a mistake and it won’t happen again.”

“What, so you’re planning on keeping me tied to your side until I die, is that it?” Dean snaps. His brother looks at him like it’s a perfectly reasonable solution. “Jesus Christ, Sam! Has it escaped your notice that hell is trying to  _take over_ , here? If we don’t do something about it, then they’re going to damn well succeed, and where does that leave our cosy little roadtrip, huh?”

Sam’s jaw tightens. “I can protect you.”

“Hell. On earth. Am I not getting this through to you, Sam? Humanity will be wiped out.”

Sam just looks at him, his face expressionless. It makes Dean furious.

“Fuck you,” he spits.

“I can protect you,” Sam repeats, firm. He walks towards the bed, reaches for Dean, but Dean scrambles away, sliding off the bed and standing up on the far side, glaring across at him.

“Who says I want you protecting me?” he asks, voice hard. “Who says I want you anywhere near me? Last time I checked, you were more dangerous than anything else out there.”

Sam’s face darkens. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Really.” Dean smiles. “Now isn’t that just fucking funny. Why don’t you do yourself a favour and go screw yourself, Sam. Between you not wanting to hurt me and the others wanting to kill me, I’d probably be better off with the zombies.”

Sam’s rounding the bed at that, backing Dean into the corner, and it’s only when he gets closer that Dean realises just how angry his brother is, how his shoulders are a rigid, tense line, how his breaths are coming hard and heavy. It’s with a strange jolt of panic that it dawns on Dean that he’s finally scored a hit, pushed Sam too far.

“You want me to treat you like the others would, Dean?” Sam asks, softly. “You want me to tie you down and play with your body and soul until you go mad?” He presses closer, his eyes gleaming dangerously. “You want me to show you what I’m really capable of?”

Dean wets his dry lips and shakes his head. “No,” he admits, wanting to back up further,  _away_. The wall is at his back, though, and there’s nowhere to go.

Sam presses his hands against the wall either side of Dean’s head, boxing him in. He smiles, tight and cruel, his anger thick in the air between them. “Maybe it’s a little too late for that now, Dean. Maybe afterwards you won’t be so quick to shoot your mouth off about something you don’t understand, hmm?”

Dean’s heart crawls up his throat.

There’s no conscious thought involved; fight or flight,  _instinct_. With his hands splayed on the wall, Sam’s t-shirt has ridden up, showing flat, muscular stomach, and Dean puts his hand out, presses his fingers against the warm, bare skin there. Maybe it’s because he remembers what Sam said about being able to read anything in Dean’s head if they were skin to skin. Maybe it’s because he remembers how Sam had gripped his knee in the car, as if trying to calm himself. Maybe there’s no tangible reason at all.

Dean swallows and Sam stares at him, glances down at the hand on his stomach, then back up, his expression shuttered. They stand like that for a very long time, until, slowly, with the rising fear that he’s done the wrong thing, Dean lets his hand drop.

“Sorry,” he says, bracing himself. “Sorry.”

He’s not expecting it when Sam takes a step back. For a long moment, his brother doesn’t move any further, just watches him, a strange expression on his face. Then he turns his back on Dean, goes to the window, braces his hands against the sill and stares out into the night.

Dean rubs a hand over his face. His ears are ringing, and he has to shake himself to movement. Walking unsteadily to the bathroom, he locks himself in and sits on the corner of the tub. He has to put his hands between his knees to stop them from trembling.

It’s a while before he comes out again. Sam is already in bed and Dean looks from him to the window.

“They’re not coming,” Sam says.

Dean doesn’t say anything. He sits awkwardly on the edge of the mattress and toes his boots off, but doesn’t make any other effort to get ready for bed. He can feel Sam’s eyes on his back but doesn’t turn to look at him. The fight still lingers in the air.

“Why me?” he asks, after a moment. “Because I’m family, is that it? You know the other psychics killed theirs, right?” Father, sister, brother, it didn’t matter; Dean had seen the fallout. Small slices of suburbia where no devil-touched child could have ever belonged, blood-soaked carpets, smashed picture frames: revenge. “The other psychics -”

The bed creaks as Sam shifts and an arm wraps around Dean’s waist, tugging him backwards. Dean sets his jaw but lets it happen; the need for answers is stronger than any lingering fear or consideration of right and wrong, stronger than the desire to pull away.

The pillows are soft beneath his head, the pale pink covers bubbly with washes. Sam props himself up on one elbow and leans over Dean, regarding him silently, his other hand resting loose and warm against his hip.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“Yeah,” Dean says, bitterly, and tries to get up. The hand against his hip tenses, holding him down.

“I mean it.” Sam’s eyes are hard. “It wasn’t always this way. After Bobby, I was going to kill you. I wanted to make you bleed, Dean, make you scream. But then -- I don’t know, I saw you, I touched you, and I couldn’t do it.”

Dean looks at him for a long time. Finally, he makes himself relax back against the covers. “So this is what? An accident? I can’t imagine Meg meant for a loophole that left me alive.”

“No,” Sam says, softly. “You were meant to die.” His fingers find Dean’s throat, tracing softly over the damaged skin there and making Dean swallow, gooseflesh rising on his arms. “I’ve been looking, reading up on it, but I’ve found nothing yet.”

The books in the trunk. Dean snorts, shakes his head.

“If there’s one thing you are, it’s goddamn predictable, you know that?”

Sam tilts his head and looks at him, surprise written on his features. Then he smiles, white teeth on show, and shrugs. His thumb brushes against the underside of Dean’s jaw, almost a caress. It makes Dean look away, uncomfortable once more.

That night, Dean lies awake for a long time in the darkness, just thinking. Sam’s arm is slung over his hip, hot and heavy and keeping him from moving, but not as terrible as it should be.

He thinks about Mom and about Jess. He thinks about why the demon decided they had to die.

Before he falls asleep, he makes himself roll over so he’s facing Sam, rather than away.

~

“These books,” Dean says, the next morning. Sam looks up. “I can help.”

Sam’s eyes narrow, suspicious.

“Come on,” Dean says. He gets up, hovers at Sam’s shoulder, eyeing the small pile of books on the table. “I’m fed up with watching daytime TV. Gimme something to do, here.” He reaches for a promising looking one, thick and brown with age.

Sam grabs his wrist, fingers wrapping tight around bone.

“Not that one,” he says. “I’ve already been through it. Here, one of these.”

He gestures to three of the most boring looking ones in the whole pile; new and not even leather bound. Dean rolls his eyes. “Thanks,” he says, dryly, and picks up the green one, moving back to the bed, the book clutched against his chest.

The book, as it turns out, isn’t boring; just deeply disturbing. Dean’s always thought he’s got quite a healthy fascination with sex - doing it, watching it - especially the girl on girl type, because  _hell yeah_  - but reading about demon sexual practices and rituals makes him want to bleach his eyeballs clean. And there are  _pictures_ , for Christ’s sake.  _Pictures_. He flicks to the inside of the front cover, curious as to where the hell Sam picked it up.

 _Property of Lewiston Public Library_.

Maine, Dean thinks. Figures.

He had made it out that far northeast during the months he had been running, stayed just outside Lewiston in a quaint little motel that smelled of mothballs. Dean doesn’t particularly like New England, prefers the West and its broad, open roads, but he had thought there was no better place to lose Sam, somewhere they both barely know.

It seems he had been wrong. Sam had been to Lewiston. Had had time to lift a book about demons getting their rocks off. Dean squints at the ink of the page in front of him, the diagram showing a man in a position he’s definitely never seen in any Kama Sutra book and one he’s fairly certain wouldn’t be possible without broken bones.

He mulls the thought over for a little bit. That Sam had been in Lewiston - following Dean, thinking about him. That Sam, trying to understand why he was doing what he was doing, had thought this particular book might be significant.

It’s difficult to continue reading the thing objectively after that. Dean keeps on imagining the different flavours of agony shown in the pictures. Keeps on imagining Sam and him and -  _Jesus_. He tries to keep his eyes off the diagrams. Demons apparently seem to find blood just as much of a requirement during sex as jiz.

In the chair opposite, Sam shifts a little, turns the page of the book he’s reading, frowns at the words. Dean can all too easily recount the hours racked up between them in libraries, that distinctive smell of old and new books, the urgency of more bodies piling up going unspoken but always there. Dean would get fidgety and Sam would start bitching and Dean would flick his ear and grin, and it would all go downhill from there.

“Something without a green cover,” he says when he hands it back, finally ( _finally_ ) done. “Goddamn books.”

He can barely look at his brother. Determinedly, he lets their fingers brush as Sam hands him a new book, the contact brief but warm, the feel of it lingering long after he’s back on the bed, book spread in front of him. He clenches and unclenches his hand in his lap, trying not to think about it.

“You’re hungry,” Sam says, after a while, breaking the silence. “We should take a break.”

Dean looks at the clock on the wall, surprised at how much time had passed. He nods, happy enough to close the book. Reading about the implications of demon possession within a family, about how demons like to exploit love, tear it apart from the inside, but how, sometimes, the emotion can overwhelm them, allowing a strong host the chance to claw back some semblance of control, is a little too close to home. He doesn’t think it’s at all relevant for what’s between him and Sam now, anyway.

Dean is looking for something more specific.

Sam goes out and it’s not long before he returns with sandwiches and still-warm pie. Dean eats the pie first, savouring it, sucking the cherry tang off his fingers. His own slice of heaven and the expression on Sam’s face is something so similar to how his brother used to look whenever Dean enjoyed his food too much that Dean can’t help playing it up until it’s all gone.

“Good pie,” he says, leaning back against the headboard.

Sam stays silent, turning back to the books, hardly touching his own food. With a sigh, Dean picks up his sandwich in one hand, his book in the other, and gets back to reading.

His eyes are raw and tired when he finally puts down the fourth book of the day, spine up, pages splayed open on the bedside table. Sam’s already in the bathroom and Dean rolls off the bed, remembering to put the empty takeout carton balanced on Sam’s pillow in the trash. He can hear Sam brushing his teeth over the sound of the tap running, the bathroom door standing open, the watery light shining through. It only takes a moment’s indecision, then Dean is stripping off his t-shirt for bed, steeling himself and walking into the bathroom, standing next to Sam by the sink.

Sam looks at him. Dean takes up his toothbrush like a weapon. There’s not really enough space for them both in front of the tiny sink, and he stands stiffly as Sam’s bare shoulder jostles against his, but doesn’t move away.

He has to think through the motions: unscrew lid of toothpaste, toothpaste on toothbrush, toothbrush in mouth. Sam is still watching him and Dean fixes his eyes on the taps, stained pale with limescale.

“What are you doing?” Sam asks.

“What does it look like?” Dean mumbles around a mouthful, then leans forward to spit, bracing a hand on the counter. It puts his arm into full contact with Sam’s, forearm to bicep, and Sam’s other hand is suddenly tight around his wrist, gripping hard enough to hurt and stopping him from snatching his arm back.

Sam’s eyes are hot on his face when he jerks Dean around to face him.

“What,” he repeats, slowly, “are you doing?”

“Brushing my teeth, jeez. You got a problem with that?” Dean tugs at his arm. “Get off me.”

Sam tilts his head slightly, really  _looks_  at him for a second, then smiles grimly and lets go. “Don’t start anything you’re not prepared to finish, Dean,” he says, coldly, and leaves, going back into the main room.

Dean turns back to the sink, finishes brushing his teeth, just going through the motions, not really thinking. By the time he’s done, Sam’s turned all the lights off, and he has to grope through the darkness to the bed. Fumbling his jeans off, he slides beneath the covers, just lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling until it comes into focus, his eyes adjusting to the gloom.

Carefully, he turns onto his side and finds Sam looking at him, his eyes open and glittering in the dark. They stare at each other in silence, the soft tick of the clock on the wall marking the time passing, second after second, then Dean shuts his eyes and breathes in deeply, forcing himself to relax and let sleep take him.

~

It can’t be later than six when Dean blinks hazily awake, the room still dark, the blinds drawn against the faint onset of morning. There’s flickering light playing across the wall and he turns, the covers twisting around his waist, and stares at the television playing on mute on the other side of the room; smoke and blood and death on a loop.

There’s a light on in the bathroom, the door cracked ajar and the sound of water running behind it. Dean leans across Sam’s empty side of the bed to fumble for the remote on the bedside table. The sheets are still warm.

He presses the sound button and listens as the news reporter talks confusion, shock, the camera panning over fire fighters and police, ambulance crews waiting at the edge of the devastation, flames melting the tarmac and blocking their path. Experts are being brought in. The president is going to make a speech. Utter destruction and no one can understand why the fires won’t go out, why aerial footage shows that the nineteenth century church in the middle of the town hasn’t been touched, surrounded by flames, perhaps a chance of survivors. Dean listens until he’s heard enough and then shuts it off, gets up.

Sam is leaning against the sink in the bathroom, head clutched in his hands, face screwed up in pain, and - just for a moment - Dean wants to go to him. The memories of visions and his brother suffering are something he’ll never be able to scrub completely from his mind; constantly useless, so fucking helpless.

He leans against the doorjamb, folds his arms across his chest.

“Is this it?” he asks, flatly.

Sam doesn’t look at him, just puts his hands under the faucet, brings the water up to his eyes and scrubs a hand through his hair, leaving it hanging damp and limp against his face. He’s fully dressed, ready to go.

Dean feels nauseous. “Goddamnit, you answer me.”

Finally, Sam straightens. His eyes are bloodshot when he turns them on Dean, his expression blank, tired.

“Get dressed,” he says. “We’re moving.”

Dean twists his lips into a grimace, goes back into the other room and doesn’t do anything but sit on the bed and flick the TV back on, watching the film footage looping over, breaking news covered in real time, nothing changing, nothing to add.

Johnston, Kansas. A population of five and a half thousand: a possible five and a half thousand bodies. Logically, Dean knows Kansas is central, as good a place as any to start an infection, hell’s poison seeping out through the state lines and blackening everything it touches. It feels personal, though. A message. Starting where everything began in a home state his family never had.

He’s still sitting there staring at the screen when Sam comes out and stops in the doorway, looking at him.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Sam asks, poisonously soft. “We’re leaving.”

Yeah, Dean thinks, and doesn’t move an inch. Because a shitty motel with china kittens and too much pink this place may be, but they’re sitting right on the border between Colorado and Kansas, and there’s no way in hell Sam was expecting this - the time, the place - or they’d have been in fucking Washington by now.

Sam’s expression is cold. “Fine. If that’s the way you want to play it.” The handcuffs shine in the light as he brings them out of his back pocket and steps forward.

Dean levels his eyes at him. Gets to his feet.

“You’re a coward, you know that?” he says, with all the bitterness he has. “What am I to you, huh? Your brother? ‘Cos lemme tell you something. I had a brother once, and he was the bravest man I knew.”

Sam stops. When it comes, his smile is not quite right: a little jagged, a little too knowing.

“You need to stop lying to yourself, Dean. Or did you think that I didn’t know what I was doing when I made the deal with Meg? One soul for another, and you’d have to be really kinda stupid not to realise there was only one way that was going to turn out.”

Dean looks at him, feeling a little sick. Sam stares flatly back.

“I knew it and it didn’t stop me.” He shrugs. “Brave, no. Selfish, yes. But then you know all about being selfish when it comes down to dealing with demons, right, Dean?”

Sam moves so fast that it barely even registers, his hands strong, his grip practiced. With a grunt of surprise, Dean ends up with his face pressed into the mattress, and when he tries to throw an elbow back into Sam’s gut, instinct finally setting in, Sam blocks all too easily, pins his arm behind his back. One cuff on, and Dean fights like a wild thing, snarling and cursing and bucking upwards, but the disadvantage is all his, half-caught, no leverage, and it doesn’t take long before Sam’s fingers close the cuff around his other wrist, securing him completely.

Sam leaves him panting on the mattress as he goes about the room, stuffing clothes into bags and putting the books into a pile, picking up his wallet and the car keys.

“Get up,” he says, when he’s done. Dean stubbornly ignores him. Sam blows out frustration and yanks him off the bed by the arms, almost dislocating Dean’s shoulders. He shoves him stumbling towards the door. “You’re a pain in my ass sometimes, you know that?”

Outside, the wind is bitter enough to strip skin, the ground hard and icy. Dean shrinks back inside, cursing.

“Jesus,” he says. “Come on, give me some pants and shoes, at least.”

“I told you to get dressed,” is all Sam says before he barrels him forward out the door, into the morning air. Dean shivers violently, his breath caught in his throat, and shifts desperately from foot to foot, trying to stop his toes from freezing on the pavement.

He doesn’t want to make it easy for Sam. He doesn’t want to get in the car because he knows, he goddamn  _knows_ , that once they set off there will be no turning back. Sam will drive and drive and drive until the world is overrun by hellspawn and humanity is wiped out, only them left. But shorts and handcuffs in freaking subzero temperatures are no fucking joke. Dean stares hatefully at Sam as he holds open the door of the Impala and gestures him in. Grits his teeth and doesn’t move.

Sam quirks an eyebrow. “Fine,” he says, and shuts the door, locking it, before moving back to the motel room, leaving Dean stranded outside.

The bastard takes his time. Dean’s cowering against the Impala, trying to get out of the wind, long before Sam comes back out, the remaining duffel and the books in his hands. Dean’s teeth are rattling in his skull and it feels like ice is eating down into the marrow of his bones. Sam just casually pops the trunk, tucking the stuff away, neat and orderly. Only then does he look at Dean, his head tilted to one side.

“Cold enough yet?”

“Fuck you,” Dean says, but he doesn’t hesitate when Sam opens the passenger side door again, just slides across onto the cold vinyl and tries to get his shivering under control, his breath misting in the air in front of him.

Sam goes to return the key, and when he comes back and starts the car up, he cranks the heating but doesn’t say anything. Dean faces the window and watches as the dark sky becomes grey, big-bellied black clouds on the horizon, looking like snow.

Later, he asks Sam to turn the radio on. Sam says no. When they stop at a garage to buy breakfast, there’s a newspaper stand at the door, and Dean can see the headlines from the car: MORE THAN 5000 FEARED DEAD. UNSTOPPABLE INFERNO CLAIMS TOWN. ALIEN BLAZE KILLS!

Sam looks tired when he returns from paying, bruises under his eyes, his face drawn tight. He’s not gentle when he tugs Dean forward to snap one cuff off, only to drag his arm around and refasten them at his front. It makes it possible to eat, at least, and Dean sits and chews slowly at his bagel, aware of Sam in his peripheral vision.

His brother picks at his own food but doesn’t eat much. Too soon, he puts the wrapper down and starts the engine again, pulling out of the lot, driving a little too fast, face grim, eyes fixed on the road.

Dean watches the miles pass and tries not to think about how long it would take to get back to where they started, then into Kansas, on to Johnston. The feeling that they might already be too late lies heavily in his gut, fucking helpless to do anything but sit there, waiting for the world to end. His mouth tastes sour like ashes and he wonders whether it’s just his imagination that’s making the grey sky grimy with yellow, shot-through like sulphur.

Suddenly, Sam grimaces, rocks forward, hand going up to press against his temple. The car swerves violently, roadside gravel crunching under the wheels, and Dean braces himself against the dash with both hands. “Pull over,” he says, his heart racing. Sam twists the wheel, turning them back onto the road and forcing a car going in the other direction onto the shoulder, the angry blare of a horn cutting through the air. “ _Jesus Christ_ , pull over or you’re gonna kill us both!”

Sam has got both his eyes squeezed shut, pressing against his skull like he wants out of it, and Dean leans over and grips the wheel, steadies it. “Come on, get your foot off the gas, you idiot.”

Something hits the underbelly of the car with a loud clunk as they get off the road and it’s not the smoothest of stops but they’re not moving anymore and that’s what matters.

Dean exhales slowly and lets go of the death grip he’s got on the wheel, sitting back in his seat. Sam is gritting his teeth, hunched over with his hands balled into fists either side of his head.

“Visions?” Dean asks, even though he knows the answer. “Yeah.” He wonders how that works now. Wonders whether Sam still gets hit when people need help and just doesn’t care anymore, can just ignore them.

Or maybe this is from the other psychics. A final call to arms or something. A farewell  _fuck you_.

Sam whines from somewhere deep inside, quiet and terrible, not quite choked off. Like an animal in pain. Dean stares at him for a long moment, then awkwardly reaches out, puts his handcuffed hands on his brother’s back, rubbing slowly.

“Hey,” he says, and wishes more than anything that he could just not care for once in his life. “S’okay.”

Sam stiffens, then breathes, “ _God_ ,” and leans fully into him, almost crawling into his goddamn lap, pressing his head against Dean’s bare chest and clenching a hand painfully tight on Dean’s thigh, holding on.

The instinctive reaction is to buck him off. Dean swallows hard and forces himself to stay still. After a minute, he twists a little so he can get his hands back, placing the circle of his arms around his brother’s shoulders, his handcuffed hands resting at Sam’s elbow.

There are maybe thousands of people dead. Others still trapped, burning alive. There’s a town on fire and a church still standing. Hell is creeping forwards, testing the boundary, and all Dean can think about is right there in the car with him, his brother in his arms, the yellow sky outside.

“Jesus, Sammy,” he murmurs.

He thinks, maybe. Maybe there’s a way. And he’s got to try however goddamn crazy it is - for himself and for the whole world and for his brother.

His hands aren’t quite steady as he moves them again, bringing them around, nudging at Sam. “Hey,” he says. “Hey, come on.”

When he raises his head, Sam looks more vulnerable than Dean can remember him looking in a very long time, his face pale, his hair a sweaty mess. Their faces are already too close, and it doesn’t take much. Carefully, Dean presses their lips together and kisses his brother.

He feels the contact tremble through Sam’s body, a shocked moment of stillness, and then Sam is kissing him back, gripping his shoulders to steady himself, pushing up into his mouth, a little desperate. Dean sits and lets it happen, his own hands a tangled knot in his lap.

This is new, terrifying, and Dean’s never wondered before what his brother’s mouth tastes like. He sinks a little in the seat and notices how Sam’s hands slip from his shoulders to under his armpits, gripping him, warm and precise; notices that Sam’s jaw is rough with stubble but his lips are as soft as any girl’s, even if there’s something behind them, something hard and fierce.

Sam pulls back, eyes narrowed, a little hazy. Sure, Dean thinks, it’s cheating when his brother’s still trembling from the aftershock of the visions, weak as a kitten, not quite in control, but he doesn’t care. It’s been a long time since he’s considered himself a man of good moral standing. Right here and now, he needs all the advantage he can get.

Sam laughs weakly, then, a little choked, a little mean. Rubs a thumb underneath Dean’s jaw, his nail catching roughly against skin. “You think this is gonna save me, Dean?” he asks, softly. “You think us fucking is the way to stop all this?” He leans closer, breathes into Dean’s ear. “You need to stop thinking so loud.”

“Maybe you need to stop listening, asshole,” Dean says, and pushes forward again.

“God,” Sam murmurs, incoherent and sounding so much like the Sam Dean used to know. Dean smiles grimly into the kiss, presses harder, tongue and teeth, and thinks,  _come on_.

His hands are still cuffed and Sam’s a dead weight in his lap, but he manages to twist a little bit, get them both mostly on the seat. Sam’s jeans are a bitch to get into, and their owner isn’t helping much, thrusting against him at an off-rhythm, the cuffs dragging painfully across Dean’s wrists.

“Stay still,” Dean grits out, finally popping the button open, getting a hand inside. As fucked as it is, this is more familiar territory, Sam’s dick in his hand longer and heavier than it ever was when they were growing up, and it throws him a little bit, but not enough to stop.

Dean’s still just in his underwear, and it’s the work of an awkward moment to get the elastic down past his balls. He’s not hard, not yet, and he has to let go of Sam to wrap his hand around his own dick, jerking himself a couple times, almost brutal, his teeth clenched together. Gets himself half there.

“You’re gonna have to -- Yeah,” he groans, as Sam shifts a little, gets their hips together, shockingly warm skin against skin. “That’s it, Sammy. Come on.”

It’s like being a teenager again, hot and nasty in the back of the car, jeans at mid-thigh and chafing like a bitch. Traffic roars by outside and Dean can’t bring himself to think about what would happen if they got caught, how Sam would react, how everything would go to hell and all this would be for nothing. Sam’s thrusting against him, getting steadily more frantic, and Dean’s whole hand is going numb where he’s got his fingers wrapped around them both. The air between them is moist and warm, and Sam’s staring intently down at him, one hand braced on the door and the other on Dean’s face, his thumb pressed warm and sticky to his cheekbone.

“Dean,” Sam says, “God,” and comes with shuttered eyes and teeth biting deep into his bottom lip, his arms quivering with strain. Then he flops down, heavy and unmoving, his heartbeat fluttering against the bare skin of Dean’s chest.

Without the friction, Dean’s hard-on wilts. After a moment, he shifts.

“Sammy,” he says, his voice a little rough, hoping,  _praying_ , because this is it. “We’ve got to go back.”

Sam raises his head and focuses on him. His eyes are clear.

“Okay,” he says.

~

The miles back to Kansas stretch and warp in front of them. Dean can’t relax, nearly vibrating off the seat with energy. He’s sitting jammed up close to Sam, their thighs touching, and he doesn’t know - doesn’t have a  _fucking clue_  - how long this will last, how long Sam will still be  _Sam_. So he keeps touching him: better to be safe than sorry.

“You know,” he says, and brushes his knuckles against the hand Sam’s got resting on the wheel. Somewhere in between tucking themselves back in and arguing about who was in a fitter state to drive, Sam had taken the cuffs off, his fingers stroking lightly over Dean’s bruised wrists, apologetic. “You better have some idea about how to take your buddies out. Seeing as how I got us this far and everything.”

Sam cuts his eyes to him with a grimace. “What do you think the vision was about?”

“Huh,” Dean says, and drops his hand to rest against Sam’s knee. There’s nothing natural about the gesture and he doesn’t care if Sam knows it.

Sam checks the rear view mirror, drums his fingers on the steering wheel, then says, frowning, “How did you know? That if me and you -- Was it in one of the books?”

Dean checks the Kansas map again, traces the route to Johnston with his eyes, though he’s already got it memorised. He shrugs lopsidedly, a little uncomfortable. “Lucky guess. I figured there had to be some reason to get rid of all the psychic kids’ moms, right? And you - with the sleeping next to me and the shower and - you’ve always been fucking grabby at the best of times, Sam, but this was different. You got calmer, you know? And then, what with Jess and all - Ava’s fiancé - it got me thinking maybe it was all about touch. And me and Dad, well, maybe we weren’t a threat, never been into all that touchy feely crap, you know?”

Sam nods. “Apart from -”

“Yeah,” Dean breaks him off. “And I don’t think the demon ever knew about that. Or never realised that it meant anything. A coupla hand jobs, fucking years ago, it was never meant to mean anything.” He shakes his head and laughs, blunt and forced. “Kinda fucking ironic, huh.”

Sam doesn’t laugh, his lips pressed into a thin, grim line, and Dean shuts up too late. Chewing on his lip, he stares out the window, and doesn’t let himself think that maybe it really had meant something to a thirteen year old kid. That maybe he had fucked Sam up long before Yellow Eyes came back into play.

Only when they pass into Kansas do they stop to pick up food. Dean stays in the car and changes back into real clothes, stuffing the old, stained shorts down to the very bottom of the duffel. Then he sits in the driver’s seat and refuses to budge when Sam returns with bottles of coke and chips. Sam huffs at him but doesn’t argue too much, still looking too pale and tired.

They eat as they drive. When Sam balls a sweatshirt up against the door and goes to put his head down, Dean stops him.

“I think it might be better, Sammy, if you - you know.” He gestures.

Sam rolls his eyes but shifts over and puts his head against Dean’s shoulder.

“I’m gonna drool on you.”

Dean smirks and doesn’t say a word.

~

They see the smoke first; a vast column of it, stretching dark and noxious to the heavens, blown to a slant by the wind. Further along, ash begins to smear across the windshield, floating softly down around them like black snow, dirtying the ground. Dean flicks the wipers on and puts his foot down a little harder.

Awake, Sam is still and silent, staring out the window, a frown on his face.

Around the town, the roads are closed. Dean glances at Sam as they round a corner and the roadblock appears, two squad cars, a state trooper leaning against one of the hoods, looking small and unthreatening from a distance.

Sam leans forward and gropes about in the glove compartment, resurfacing with a handful of fake IDs. He flicks through them, keeping a couple and stashing the rest away again. He settles back in the seat.

“Why would I chuck them?” is all he says in response to Dean’s look.

They draw level and Dean rolls down his window, all business. “Federal marshals,” he says, flashing the badge. “There been any change we should know about?”

The guy has one of those funny little moustaches, a fuzzy ginger patch just above his top lip that looks stuck on. He tips his hat back to look at them, his eyes on the proffered ID for a moment, then shrugs. “Not that I’ve heard. You fellas probably know more than me anyway. Hell, I’d bet the press knows more about it than I do. I’ve said all along that the state of affairs in this country is mixed up, that if they ain’t got their priorities set right then who can we trust, huh? All morning I’ve been listening for updates on the news radio myself and if that ain’t crazy, I don’t know what is. All I know is this goddamn road. They don’t tell us anything. Just watch the goddamn road, Mike, is what they say. Just watch the goddamn road.” He calls loudly, “Ain’t that right, Stu?”

His partner nods and smiles a little blankly from the interior of one of the squad cars. Dean doubts he has a clue as to what he’s agreeing to.

“Well,” Dean says, and smiles wide, “you officers keep doing a first-rate job. Who knows what would happen if you let the wrong people in. We can’t just have anyone walking in from off the street.”

Mike puffs up a little. “Sure as hell we can’t. Well, gentlemen, if you just give me a second, I’ll get your way cleared.”

“Thanks.”

Dean winds up his window, watching as the guy turns and gestures emphatically to Stu, who starts the squad car up and reverses a little way, clearing enough room to let the Impala through. Dean salutes the pair as they drive by. Sam shakes his head.

“You’re a jackass.”

Dean grins. “Damn straight.”

Further down the road, they start passing parked ambulances and more police cars, the falling ash becoming thick enough to make driving impossible. Dean pulls over by the side of the road and turns the ignition off. It leaves the inside of the car too quiet. Sam is sitting tensed like a coiled spring, waiting, and Dean imagines he can hear the ash falling, layering blanket upon blanket over the car, gradually shutting out the light.

“So,” he says, after a moment. “How are we playing this?”

Sam doesn’t look at him. “It’s too dangerous.”

Dean snarls. “Funny, that wasn’t what I asked.”

“Dean -”

“No,” Dean says. “You expect me not to come, you’re gonna have to break out the handcuffs again, Sammy. I’m serious.”

Sam turns fully round to him in his seat, his expression tight, angry. “What help do you think you’re going to be in there, Dean? You don’t have a gun, you don’t have any silver, and it’s not like that would do much damage anyway. That’s hellfire that’s burning and there’s no way you’d survive it. No one can.”

“You can,” Dean says, steadily. “You were planning on keeping me safe through hell on earth, so don’t tell me you can’t manage to walk me through a little hellfire.”

Sam holds his gaze. “So what? You think I’ll be able to do a damn thing if I’m holding your hand the entire time? Forget it, Dean, you just -”

“No. But I think you can get me to the church.”

Sam stops, his forehead creasing into a frown.

“Hallowed ground, Sam. They won’t be able to touch me.”

Sam shakes his head. “So? If they can’t get to you, then you can’t get to them either. It’s pointless. You’d still be safer out here.”

“And what about you, huh? You really expect me to believe that you’d be safer -  _you_ , not what that sonofabitch made you - you think  _you_ ’ll be safe with me all the way out here? Because this -” he gestures “- whatever this thing is between us, you  _need_  me. You need to stay with it, stay focused, stay  _my brother_ , okay? If you come back and it’s not you --” Dean swallows back bile. “It’s not gonna happen, alright? I’m not losing you again.”

Sam doesn’t reply, just looks out the black-smeared windshield, his mouth pinched tight.

Finally, he says, “If I don’t succeed - if I don’t get out of there alive - you’ll be stuck there, you know that, right?” It looks like the words are leaving a foul taste in his mouth, his face strangely screwed up. “You won’t be able to manage the flames by yourself. You’ll be stuck there.”

Dean shrugs. “If you don’t win, it won’t matter anyway,” he says. He doesn’t want to think about it: no Sam, no world. He grins, too wide, too many teeth on show, and punches Sam in the shoulder. “So, you know. No pressure or anything.”

~

The flames must be forty foot high, a wall of pulsating fire rising high above their heads, and through the flickering wave of heat the scene doesn’t look quite real, warping and stretching before them. Sam and Dean stand together, side by side, and watch it for a moment, not speaking. Nothing about the fire is natural, the flames not creeping forward but burning without fuel, eating into the pavement around the town as if drawn with a ruler.

To their right, firemen are working hoses. Police and Feds stand around watching, occasionally talking into radios, trying to coordinate something,  _anything_. Ambulance crews are primed and ready, standing further back with their equipment, faces pale and strained in the flickering light.

No one notices them.

“So,” Dean says, and wipes the sweat off his face with the sleeve of his shirt. “You ready?”

Sam isn’t sweating. The flames are reflected in his eyes, burning bright and unholy, and his jaw is set. The silver knife Dean had once tried to kill him with is tucked loosely into his belt and his hands are relaxed and still at his sides. He looks deadly.

Dean swallows.

“Sam?”

Sam blinks, and it’s like the flick of a switch: Sam again.

“Yeah,” he says, slowly. “Yeah, I’m ready.” He looks at Dean and nods. “Keep close to me, okay?”

They walk forward, and just as Dean’s wondering whether his eyebrows have been singed off in the heat, Sam reaches out and wraps his hand around the back of his neck, his fingers cold against hot, damp skin. Dean starts, not expecting it, and comes to a halt as a shiver passes through him; it feels glorious - the complete removal of heat, like his whole body has been wrapped in cool towels - and he stares across at Sam, a little amazed. Sam stares back, a hint of a smirk at the corner of his mouth, then gestures forwards. Dean goes, squinting against the brightness, carefully picking his feet up over the warped and buckled tarmac. He shuts his eyes and braces himself as they step into the roaring flames, only aware of the feel of Sam’s fingers on his skin, a cold spot at the nape of his neck.

When he opens his eyes again, it’s to a world coloured in orange and red and yellow, hazy and distorted with smoke and heat. There’s nothing left of the town but the crunch of rubble under their feet and the hint of blackened foundations through the flames. Dean had been telling himself from the very first that there was still hope; that there would be survivors, that some people would have gotten out. His eyes sting with smoke and he wants to cough, choke, but he’s breathing just fine. Five and a half thousand people, and he doubts they’ll even find any remains that haven’t been incinerated beyond recognition.

Sam squeezes his neck, nudging him forwards a little, bringing Dean sharply back to what matters. The rush of the fire pressing in around them is deafening, the lick of flames disorientating, and he lets Sam direct him forward, concentrating on the slightest change of touch, the need for the smallest adjustment in direction. This is just the beginning if they don’t succeed.

They walk and walk and if Dean had ever allowed himself to imagine a hell, this would be it. He thinks maybe they’re on the old main street, but it’s impossible to tell for sure. Sometimes they pass what might have been the burnt out shells of cars, metal twisted and warped; a blackened stump that was maybe a fire hydrant; the melted remains of traffic lights. His mouth is dry and his head pounding with the beat of the fire around them, his shirt soaked through with sweat that has nothing to do with the heat. Sam’s grip on his neck gets steadily tighter and tighter.

Finally, up ahead, something breaks the nightmarish monotony of the landscape. Dean watches as they get closer, a dark shape rising above their heads, obscured by a thickening in the swirling fire. Sam presses him forwards, then through into complete silence, and it’s like breaking out of water and only realising then how much you need to breath. Dean puts a hand up -  _stop_  - and bends over, his hands clenched hard on his knees, steadying himself, his ears ringing. It takes a while to clamp down on the shaking in his limbs, and he waits, gathering control, before straightening and staring up at the old church, blinking purple and green dazzle from his watering eyes.

“God,” he says, his voice strangely muted to his ears. The fire presses right up to the boundary of the small graveyard, no more than an arm’s reach away, but under their feet and between the old gravestones the grass is still green and a little muddy.

“Yeah,” Sam says, and uncurls his fingers from Dean’s neck, letting his hand drop. Dean can feel a slight warmth radiating from the wall of flame behind them, but that’s it - the extent of the fire’s claim. Around the church, it’s still winter, still cold.

Sam starts up the gravel path without looking back. “Come on,” he says. “Inside is safest.”

The church is a modest size, squatting squarely on its plot of consecrated ground, the inside plain but for the wood-carved pulpit and the stained glass window that silhouettes it with coloured light. Sam looks around, restlessly fingering the knife at his waist, and nods.

“This is good,” he says. “This is good.” He turns and looks Dean squarely in the face. “You’ll sit in here and you will not move, do you understand me? You’ll lock the door once I’m gone and you won’t come out again until I come and get you. That is not open for interpretation, Dean.”

His face is a little too severe, his eyes a little too dark. Dean nods his assent but doesn’t look away.

“You’re the boss,” he says, evenly. “Just gimme a sec to --”

He puts his hands on Sam’s face, pulls him down to his lips. Sam grunts a little in surprise, but meshes his fingers into Dean’s hair anyway, pulling him closer, kissing him back wholeheartedly, wet and hot. An arm snakes around Dean’s back, a hand pressed hard against his ass, and Sam jerks against him, out of control, his breath catching raggedly in his throat.

Dean pulls back to rest his forehead against Sam’s, a little breathless himself.

“I’ll be here,” he says, roughly. “I’ll be here waiting for you until you come back. You remember that, alright, Sammy? You come back to me or I’ll kick your ass.”

Sam brings his hand up to Dean’s face, cups it, pressing his thumb to Dean’s cheekbone. His eyes are a light hazel, wide and sincere. He nods, then takes a step back and pulls out the knife.

Time to go.

Dean watches from the doorway as his brother walks back down the graveyard path and is swallowed up by the fire. Then he closes the heavy wooden door, lowers the latch, and leans back against the solid wood.

And waits.

~

It starts as an itch in the back of his skull.

Having been three times around the small confines of the church, exploring every corner, and after pacing backwards and forwards for an hour or so, Dean is doing just what Sam told him to do: sitting.

He feels fucking useless.

He shouldn’t be in here with his thumb up his ass, he should be out there helping, goddamnit. Sam should be back by now. Maybe he’s hurt. Maybe without Dean there he’s gone dark side again, and maybe Dean should never have agreed to this fucking stupid plan in the first place.

Dean fidgets, thinking about going to stand outside. He’s halfway out of the pew, already imagining fresh air and a cure for his restless boredom, imagining Sam just on the boundary, collapsed, needing him, before something clicks into place and he sits heavily back down.

 _Inside is safest_ , Sam had said, and Dean knows there’s no real reason for him to leave the church. He’s aware he still wants to, though, the desire niggling at the back of his mind.

Grimly, Dean unbuckles his belt and wraps it around one wrist, before awkwardly tying the stiff leather tight around the edge of the pew. He sits on his other hand and starts mentally going through every dark creature he can think of, listing the ways to get rid of them:  _ghost, salt and burn; banshee, axe through the crown of the head; pixies, cayenne pepper and silver shot…_

He begins to sweat and it’s only when he notices his wrist is hurting like a bitch that he looks down and sees he’s rubbed it raw by trying to tug himself out of his makeshift restraint. He grits his teeth, shuts his eyes and holds on. Tells himself to get a fucking grip. He can do this.

He can’t.

Jerkily, he unties his bound wrist with his other hand and stands up, his belt falling unheeded to the floor. Cursing himself all the way, he struggles against every step forward, tries to sit down on the floor, tries to hold onto every row of pews - anything to stop the forward progress of his feet. Nothing works and the door feels strangely insubstantial in his hand as he pushes it outward, cold air rushing into his face.

Andy is standing on the very boundary of the holy ground, wreathed by fire, a smile on his lips. He gestures -  _come here_ \- and Dean obeys.

“You can stop now,” Andy says, casually, when Dean’s close enough. His smile gets wider. “You might get burnt up otherwise.”

Dean can feel the strangely gentle warmth of the flames at this distance, and he stands still, glaring.

“Dean, Dean, Dean. Long time no see, man! Apart from that thing in the forest that time but hey, water under the bridge, yeah? I mean, you wouldn’t have any friends left if you took people trying to kill you personally, am I right?” Andy laughs, and it’s still a little nervous, just like Dean remembers.

Andy looks the same too. Sorta. A good-natured waster, with wide eyes and messy hair, still a little babyish around the mouth. There’s something off about him, though. Something dead about his eyes and not quite right about his smile, his skin a shade too pale even in the hot, flickering light, his air of innocence gone.

Death wrapped up in skin and bones, Dean reminds himself.

“You know,” Andy continues - talking his mouth off, and that’s certainly something that hasn’t changed - “she’s  _really_  pissed at you. Killing her daddy and everything, and then fucking with her golden boy when he was playing along so nicely too. She’s not gonna let you go anywhere else but hell, you know that, right? She wants you all to herself.”

Dean bares his teeth at him. “I heard those who want don’t always get.”

“Be quiet,” Andy says, offhandedly, and silence rams its way down Dean’s throat. “You’re wrong. Without you around, Sam’s fair game, and she’s going to make you watch as he tears the world apart, piece by piece, until there’s nothing left that doesn’t belong to hell. You’ll hate your brother by the end of it. Wish that he was never born.”

With nothing else left to him, Dean just shakes his head.

“You don’t think so? Well, I guess we’ll know soon enough.” Andy tilts his head to one side and looks at him thoughtfully. “You burn up in hellfire and guess where it lands you?”

Dean stares at him. Andy smirks.

“Ding, ding, ding, that’s right. Go straight to hell, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she did this all for you. And this has been fun, Dean, really, it has. I’ll come see you, maybe, when I get the time. See what state your soul’s in, shoot the shit, catch up - you know, all that good stuff.”

Andy’s expression doesn’t change. “Now walk into the fire, Dean.”

Dean starts moving forwards, then, and his mind is throwing nothing but unthinking panic at him, flinching away from the thought of hell, from the thought of leaving Sammy to these bastards and a fate worse than death and, Jesus Christ, this is  _it_ , his feet relentlessly moving under him, taking him closer and closer to the wall of pulsating fire and the unforgiving oblivion lurking just behind it.

But then Sam steps out of the flames in front of him and Dean’s steps are slowing, faltering, but not stopping, and he’s near enough to reach out and touch Sam, near enough, almost, to walk into the fire’s embrace.

To the side, Andy laughs his nervous little laugh and nods at Sam. “From this close, even you can’t stop him from doing what I want.”

Sam doesn’t answer him. The silver knife in his hand is black with blood and he reaches out with his other to grasp Dean’s neck, jerking him forwards into the roaring blaze. Dean hardly has time to acknowledge the strange coolness once more swamping his body, before they’re standing in front of Andy, a dark figure through the twisting flames, features hardly recognisable, distorted by the heat. Sam wrenches forward and Dean swears he feels the impact of the blade entering Andy’s gut: a wet slickness and a sick grind against bone.

Andy just stands there, his mouth moving with words Dean can’t hear, a smug expression on his face. Sam says something back and yanks out the blade, throws it away, then shoves his fingers into the wound.

Even through the bright lick of fire, Dean can see Andy is screaming.

~

They stumble out of the flames together on the other side. People are shouting to each other, clearing enough room to get more fire trucks in, the jets of water from the hoses finally making some sort of difference, dousing the blaze to the blackened ground. It’s not difficult to make it to the Impala unseen in all the commotion.

Without a word, Sam takes the keys from Dean and gets in at the driver’s side. He hasn’t said much the whole way back, virtually thrumming with tension, and Dean warily gets in next to him. He wants to sidle closer on the seat, maybe crowd his leg right up to Sam’s, but he doesn’t. Like this, he’s not quite sure how Sam would react.

Resting on the steering wheel, the fingers of Sam’s right hand are stained with dried blood right down to the third knuckle. Dean stares at them for a moment, then fixes his gaze out the windshield.

They stop only for the roadblock. Once through, Sam puts his foot down on the gas and doesn’t let up until they’re out of Kansas and well into Colorado again, heading for New Mexico. It’s dark by the time they have to pull over for gas, and Dean gets out of the car as Sam manages the gas handle.

Sam stares at him. “What are you doing?”

“Just going in to get some water,” Dean says, giving a slightly crooked grin. “Man, I’m freaking parched. Guess that’s what happens when you wander around in hellfire for too long, huh?” He’s been thirsty since Johnston, his mouth so dry he doesn’t think he’d be able summon up enough moisture to spit.

Sam doesn’t smile back. “You’ll stay in the car,” he says.

Dean blinks at him. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Yeah, but I --” He pauses. “You’re serious?”

Sam doesn’t reply and it’s answer enough. The look in his eyes dissuades Dean from arguing. He gets back in the car and doesn’t say a word when Sam comes back from paying, even when Sam puts two bottles of water in his lap.

They stop at a motel with a neon bright sign blinking  _vacancies_  at them and Dean waits in the car as Sam goes in to get a key: an all too familiar arrangement. Once in the room, Dean doesn’t even pause to pass judgement on the décor, just heads straight for the bathroom, kicking off his boots as he goes. He stands under the shower’s hot blast for a long time, letting the stresses of the day dissolve out of his muscles, getting the hellish smoke off his skin.

It’s all the breathing room he allows himself and Dean shuts the water off, listening to the drain gurgle as he rubs a towel over his head, wiping wetness out of his eyes and ears.

“It’s all yours,” he says, when he comes out, towel wrapped securely around his waist.

Sam is sitting on the edge of the bed, his elbows resting on his knees, his shoulders hunched. He doesn’t look quite there when he nods and stands up, brushing past Dean and closing the bathroom door behind him. Dean waits for the sounds of the shower to start up again before going to his duffel and rummaging around for pants and a t-shirt. Then he stops, his hands clenched into rough denim, and wonders what the hell the point is.

In just the towel, he sits at the head of the bed and tries to look casual about it.

Too soon, the shower stops. The lock clicks back and Sam reappears, towelling water out of his hair, moisture flecks on his skin shining in the light. Dean swallows and stands up, not quite sure what to do with his hands.

Sam stares at him. “What?”

Dean swallows. “I’d like to -- Can we -?”

Sam’s smile, when it comes, isn’t particularly reassuring. “Sure,” he says. “Lose the towel and lie on the bed.”

Dean looks at his brother, holds his cold gaze for a second, then shrugs and lets the towel fall to the floor. He can do this - sure he can - he’s Dean Winchester and he can do anything. He concentrates hard on the girls he’s left across the country, fucked out and gasping, their panties around their ankles, on the floor, stuffed down the backseat of the Impala. He thinks of their breathy little moans, the hot, wet neediness between their legs, the soft give of their breasts and the creaminess of their thighs.

He doesn’t think it makes much difference. Sam is still looking at him like he can taste his fear, a smile playing across his features, and Dean grits his teeth and gets awkwardly onto the bed, ignoring the dull thump of his heart in his ears. He lies in the middle of the scratchy covers, head propped up on the pillow, and quirks an expectant eyebrow at Sam:  _what the hell are you waiting for?_

Sam just continues to dry his hair, taking his sweet time over it, apparently not bothered in the slightest. He doesn’t even look at him.

Fuck you, Dean thinks.  _Fuck you_. He knows Sam is in there, that his brother has just pushed himself too far once more, back over that edge of blood and violence. That’s all this is, Dean knows, and he can lie here all fucking night.

He doesn’t have to. Finally, Sam turns his full attention on him, and the hand doing the towelling slows as his eyes drag up Dean’s body, before stopping completely. Sam drops the towel and climbs onto the bed, the mattress shifting beneath him as he crawls further up. He doesn’t touch Dean, but puts his hands either side of his head, leaning his face in so close Dean can smell the soap on his body.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” he says, softly. His breath is hot against Dean’s skin, a counterpoint to the chill of the motel room.

“Yeah?”

Sam smiles, a little twisted. “I can feel your fear. You don’t want to do this.” He moves then, dips his mouth down to Dean’s neck, nuzzling. “How does it feel to know that we’re never gonna be able to split up, hmm? That you’re gonna have to trail after me, spreading your legs whenever I need you to? That you’re going to have to keep on doing this until one of us dies?”

Dean doesn’t answer, just puts his fingers in Sam’s hair and pulls him up to his mouth, kissing him vehemently into silence. Sam surges into it and gives as good as he gets, bracketing Dean’s face with his hands and tilting his chin up, a thumb at the corner of his mouth opening Dean’s lips wider, pulling him deeper with tongue and teeth and lips.

Later, Dean pushes back and grunts into the mattress, a little desperate, and says, “I’ll get over it.” He’s got three of Sam’s fingers deep inside him, slowly stretching him apart at the edges, Sam’s hand pulling tight around his dick. Sam doesn’t reply - maybe doesn’t even hear him - letting go of Dean’s dick and spreading his hand at the small of his back, warm and slick with sweat, reassuringly gentle.

Dean looks back at his brother; Sam’s eyes are shining, completely lost to it, and Dean knows right then that he means it. Sam shifts over him and Dean shuts his eyes, trusts, and just holds on.

~

Afterwards, Sam cries; for Bobby and Ellen, for everyone else. Violent, gut-wrenching sobs that shudder through his whole body, his face crumpled and blotchy, entirely unselfconscious in his despair. Dean moves to put a hand on his shoulder and Sam flinches away as if burnt, not looking at him, choking down on his grief.

Dean snags his still damp towel from the floor and stands up, wrapping it tightly around himself. He gives Sam some space, moving into the bathroom and shutting the door behind him. Through the thin wood, he can still hear his brother, the sound of misery pounding through his head, and when Dean turns on the shower and stands under the lukewarm blast again, the noise doesn’t fade in the slightest, echoing hollowly in his ears.

Maybe, Dean thinks, some day soon, Sam will listen to him. They’ll talk and maybe Sam will be able to hear  _saving the world_  instead of just  _murder_. Will hear  _I wanted to do it_ rather than just  _rape_. Maybe, one day, they’ll be able to touch each other, look at each other, without remembering. Dean presses his forehead against the cool tiles and just leans there, blinking the water out of his eyes.

None of it is going to be easy. It’s the price they both have to pay.


End file.
